IGES Importing

[andrewbirch]

Has anyone had trouble importing IGES models? I had a client send me some IGES models exported from formZ, and VW just sends up a dialog saying IGES import failed. The file may be empty or incomplete, or it may be that it is not an IGES file.

Can anyone confirm that IGES imports are working for them ?

Any specific information as to how the IGES files are exported (export paramenters) would be appreciated.

[Kaare Baekgaard]

If the version of that FormZ is pre 4.0, I have had no succes with importing IGES files into VW - if they contain anything other than polygon-based geometry. After that version I have not tried yet.

From other sources, it often works - and sometimes not. If the objects of the file are nurbs based, it is really cool to get the excact information through IGES rather than a polygon mesh through DXF/DWG.

If it does not contain nurbsbased objects - chose the DXF/DWG.

I have tried the SAT format a couple of times, but never sussesfully imported anything through it. I wonder what it is good for.

[andrewbirch]

Thanks for the feedback. Here's what we found. In formZ, we needed to manually explode all symbols first, the export to IGES doesnt do it correctly. Also, for safe measure, we converted all objects in formZ to facetted. This brought in the model well.

Interestingly enough, while we were trying the IGES, we found a SAT solution that seems to bring in cleaner geometry while retaining solid status.

In formZ 4.x, export SAT with all defaults, and save as SAT Version 8. VW brought in the geometry nicely. SAT is used in Parasolid - based modeling, I believe. We run across it from time to time.

[Biplab]

SAT is actually the format for ACIS-based modelers e.g. FormZ, Inventor, CadKey etc. Parasolid's format is X_T - which we do not have support yet but may be sometime in the future we will have it.

[andrewbirch]

Thanks for the clarification. Any progress towards a reliable .3ds translator ? From a modeling standpoint that would be huge.

One other thought I had. In some other solid modelers, there is a tool or macro to reduce polygon complexity of an object based on certain parameters- the end result being as less intricate, and therefore less to render, delineate, etc. Any thought to that type of function in VW ? I thought someone had developed a 3rd party macro back in VW version 8 or 9. We sometimes use formZ's version of this when we need to bring a model into VW, that is heavily facetted such as a detailed product, that we can get away with represented a whole lot less detail in VW and eventually C4D for presentation.

[Biplab]

3ds import/export is very much in our radar screen.