[ivox3]

hello SW people ......

I have some .sldprt files of some product design and I need to get them into Rhino and then rendered out in Maxwell.

is it just a matter of exporting out of SW into a good format? (something Rhinoll would like)

and if that's the case, .....is anyone willing to help on that .... ?


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UPDATE: .....okay, guys .......thought I'd show at least a WIP of what I'm working on.

This is just a possible studio setup I thought might work ......it's a total WIP , ...I haven't developed any materials yet, and the lighting needs a good bit of tweaking. .....but I like the scene, am I'm shooting for a high end 'slickness'. ....comments welcome. Thanks for all the help guys, ...it's good to be just working on final render versus bad poly's ....

[John Layne]

Try using exporting the files from SolidWorks as IGES or STEP.

If saving as IGES click on the options button in the save as dialouge box and select NURBS rather than standard in the "Surface representation/System preference" drop down list.

[edit] Didn't read your post properly, zip them up and send them to john@solidengineering.co.nz

If they are over 10mb zipped please use www.yousendit.com to transfer them to me.

[ivox3]

file sent ..........thanks for the help John.

[Eric Lagman]

Good luck with that Ivox. That must have been you posting in the rhino NG. See my post here, and dont be suprised if you run into issues.

http://www.maxwellrender.com/forum/view ... light=step

I had issues in the past with imported geometry to rhino. It took noise forever to leave, and some of the geometry got wierd artifacts. This was a while back so maybe its not an issue anymore. Let us know if it works.

[ivox3]

..roger that.

[ivox3]

Well, ....what started out to look promising has gone pretty much the way Eric said it might , ......I'm not deterred, yet.


I have had some success .....the first render straight from John's IGES export had 'artifacts gone wild', but none of the surfaces were joined into whole parts .....did that, ...better render. Still a few lingering black spots .....,but I believe these are emanating from intersections. I think I can get all these things fixed, but a bigger problem remains ......Studio won't allow me to select a thing...so I can't assign any materials. Maybe I should assign something from Rhino to add UV, but I didn't think it would matter if I was only using basic materials --no maps.

Note: I'd like to say that i'm open and willing to take some time to learn this Studio thing in the interest of progress, but I'd also like to say that I'm completely irritated with it. It seems slow and unresponsive and I'm not a fan of its navigation methods. I hope this is all just a matter of time to learn it and get updates.

thanks for listening & the help.

[Eric Lagman]

Sorry to hear that. I was hoping you could get it to work. If you want to you can send me the solidworks file, and I can run it through polytrans and export as a rhino mesh. This might help. Its the mesh where it gets all whacked not the surface geometry. For some reason the mesh goes bonkers when it gets translated for maxwell to render. It looks like the statue 3d scans people have been rendering in rhino work out ok. I believe this is because it came into rhino with a proper mesh. This is why I was thinking it might help you out if I run it through Polytrans.

Edit: I must agree the studio workflow is very clunky right now from a workflow position. It needs custom key controls, and a better organization of imported models in the tree. I believe they are aware of this. Doesn't hurt to post in the wish list thread to get things fixed. I suggesd they change the viewport names in studio from xy,yx,xz to laymans terms like top, front, side etc. Guess what they listened. I think they are very open to what their users want out of studio.

[ivox3]

okay Eric, Sounds good ....I'll do just that. ....will send a little later.

btw:

I suggesd they change the viewport names in studio from xy,yx,xz to laymans terms like top, front, side etc.

-- excellent, .....the xy thing is ridiculous ...something a pure scientific mind might appreciaite, but not mine. ...not that I'm not scientific ...just not that geeky. hahahaha

[b-kandor]

Just wanted to add that and acis file (.sat) may translate better from sw to rhino.

Parasolid would be the best if available but I can't remember if rhino can import .x_t files right now?

Both are native kernals in sw.

[Eric Lagman]

Rhino cant open Acis. It can only export acis.

[ivox3]

Update: ...everything is working fine. thanks again Eric ......the polytrans is the way to go.

Now I'm just battling with rc5 stuff materials/emitters ...the ususal. Pretty close to a 'postable' image.