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MikeMinsterkett1-Visitor
1-Visitor
February 16, 2012
Question

Universal CAD Formats & relations?

  • February 16, 2012
  • 4 replies
  • 2618 views

Hi All,

I make solid CAD models with built in adjustability using relations. I end up having to make custom models from the adjustable model I already have becasue when the Customer receives the iges or step file it is just an imported feature. In a perfect world I would like to send the Customer a solid model with my built in relations so they can manipulate to fit in their application. I get a lot of complaints about "I can't manipulate the model". I only use PROE so I can't speak for the other systems but I think this is normal. I can take the iges or step & manipulate without the relations it just takes a little work. My question is does anybody know of a universal CAD format where my built in relations will travel with the model? Im just looking to get the Customer more flexibility when designing in applications.

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Mike


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4 replies

Patriot_1776
Patriot_177622-Sapphire II
22-Sapphire II
February 17, 2012

Are they trying to modify exported files (STEP, IGES, etc.?). If so, it's a dumb geometry file they can doo boolean operations on downstream, but that's about it unless they have feature recognition software. to my knowledge, things like relations don't come across, especially in an export file.

MikeMinsterkett1-VisitorAuthor
1-Visitor
February 17, 2012

Yes. Most of the time with feature recognition tools you get errors & a lot of times it wont recognize the features you want. I use it sometimes just to get some standard datum planes. It would be nice though if it was possible to capture relations with an exported universal CAD format. I am not aware of a way so thought I would post about it.

thanks

James621-Visitor
1-Visitor
February 17, 2012

hi,

Each of the universal formats like IGES, STEP, SAT, VDA, Parasolid, etc. have their own specifics of what kind of data can they contain (part names, layers, model colors, curves, surfaces, solids, etc.). But as far as I know you can't transfer Pro/E relations or parameters into any of these universal CAD formats.

There are some sort of not very perfect translators for example for drawing parametric data from for example SolidWorks model to Pro/E but to do that you always need to have the native data from such other CAD. Once the parametric model is exported into universal format it's dead for good.

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