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I asked something before, maybe in a different part of the forum, but didn't get a reply.

I was wondering firstly how to go from Alias to Maxwell Studio... as exporting as OBJ doesn't seem to work. When I open the file there are no objects in the scene.

Also why is there no plugin for Alias or Catia?

It does work and it works fairly well.

You have two options:
1. select the object you want to convert, "export" > "active as" > choose "obj" in "file formats" drop down menu. In "surface tessellation" select "tessellate" and set a proper tessellation tolerance (0.1 usually is enough).
2. select the object you want to convert, in your palette there's a tab named "mesh", double click on "NURBS to mesh" and set the following options:
- uncheck "use existing tessellation"
- set "tessellator" to "accurate"
- set a proper tolerance (0.1 usually is enough)
- deselect "limit edge length"
- select "tessellate shells" if your NURBS surfaces have been stitched
- set "merge type" to "modeling"

Keep in mind that the converted object will be "one piece", so if your model is composed of multiple pieces you will have to convert one piece at a time.
Your converted model could end up having small holes because of how the original NURBS model was subdivided (how many isoparametric lines). Let's say you have a cylinder with 8 subdivisions, put a fillet on the edges and the resulting fillet has 20 subdivisions, you will end up with small (really small, depending on your tessellation tolerance) triangular gaps between the two surfaces once converted to poly. You could rebuild those NURBS surfaces to have the same number of isoparametric lines before the conversion.

A more sophisticated conversion could be done by importing the NURBS model in Maya or other poly modeling software.

Hi, yeah thanks, I tried both of those options and still doesn't work. Doesn't matter though as I saved as STEP and opened in Rhino.

Still wondering why there is no plugin for Alias at least... can anyone answer this?

Lack of resources? Lack of interest? The usual stuff.

I see.

You're welcome.