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1-Visitor
January 30, 2014
Question

processing of stl file in pro engineer

  • January 30, 2014
  • 4 replies
  • 5440 views

I have created 3d model in Auto desk 123d Catch, I imported that model in Pro-e which was in Stl format. I am unable to process it i.e I can not perform operations like Merge, Extrude,etc.. I have uploaded the model in Stl formet, please help me

    4 replies

    13-Aquamarine
    January 30, 2014

    STL is a pretty nasty format for transferring CAD models - it approximates the model as surface triangles, much like an FEA mesh. For some reason it's preferred by STL and SLA '3D printers', but it loses a lot of information from the original CAD.

    Try STEP (.stp), or if that isn't available, IGES (.igs).

    Ah, sorry, I've just seen that it's come from 123D Catch (software which constructs a 3D model of an object from a series of photos from different angles). In that case, I'm not sure there's much you can do - I've found before that imported STL elements are neither surfaces nor solids, so as far as I know there's nothing you can do with them.

    Happy to be proved wrong...

    24-Ruby III
    January 30, 2014

    Hello,

    I found the following topic in Creo 2.0 Help.

    About Working with Imported Faceted Geometry

    The tessellated files that are imported from STL, VRML, STEP, and MEDUSA contain faceted geometry.
    You can use the imported faceted data in Creo Parametric to:
    • Calculate mass properties and measurements such as distance, length, angle, and area.
    • Create datum features by referencing the faces, edges, and vertices of the faceted data.

    This means that STL geometry cannot be used as reference for Merge, Extrude,etc...

    Martin Hanak

    1-Visitor
    January 30, 2014

    Restyle module is what you are after. Take a look at this video:

    http://communities.ptc.com/videos/3505

    1-Visitor
    January 30, 2014

    If you don't have the restyle module, you could also re-create it from scratch by creating points at each vertex and drawing curves through them to create boundry blends but I hear that there are other forms of torture that are more effective.

    Patriot_1776
    22-Sapphire II
    January 30, 2014

    AutoCAD should be able to export a STEP file (or if need be, IGES), use that instead. These export files are all still "dumb" files, but at least they're not faceted.

    1-Visitor
    January 30, 2014

    It's from 123D Catch. Autodesk product, but not AutoCAD.

    Patriot_1776
    22-Sapphire II
    January 30, 2014

    Should still be able to export a STEP or at least IGES file.

    Also, from what I seem to remember (though I could be wrong), the STL file is made a little oversize, with the flats of the tesselation being tangent to the true surfaces, with the points of the triangles being oversized. If I remember, that' so when you sanded down the resultant SLA (or FDM etc.) model to remove the high points you got the true size.