Exporting from STL to 3dm

Hi all,

Newbie here evaluating Rhino to see if its the direction I want to go in. One of my big wants and needs as a home hobbyist is interoperability. I need to be able to import and export file formats between a number of different programs. Right now, I’m trying to export an STL file from Rhino into 3DM format, and then open it in Moment of Inspiration, Alibre, and potentially other programs. I need to really see how the ineroperability goes before making a final purchase decision.

Anyway, the STL file opens perfectly in Rhino (great job there!) and then I’ll try to export if into a 3DM format. However, upon opening in Moment of Inspiration or another program, all I get is a blank screen or a message that the file format is invalid. The file is there, but there’s something about the way its being read or was formatted that is essentially making a file full of data appears as simply a blank workspace or not at all. Is there a trick or a group of export setting that I should be using? Since this happens across multiple programs, I’m guessing its a Rhino issue having to so with the manner in which the file is being exported.

Many thanks for putting up with a newbie.

Bob

STL is a mesh format. Rhino can import and export meshes no problem. However I do not know if MoI or Alibre can actually read a mesh object that might be in a Rhino file - I don’t have either program…

also, if you are evaluating Rhino 6, I’m not sure if those other programs have updated their importers to support the new file format.

Cad applications in general do not easily allow meshes to be edited like native objects. Moi allows import of OBJ via a script a reference object.