I’d like to request the function to open Alphacam .ald files directly in Rhino unless anyone knows a way to do this or batch convert.
Hi @jaybee63,
I don’t know of any Alphacam support available for Rhino.
I think your best bet is to hope Alphacam can export a standard format, such as DXF…
– Dale
Hi Dale, thank you for the reply.
Alphacam does export a rhino file but their is no batch conversion process. We have an awful lot of legacy Alphacam files and I would like to either batch convert or be able to open directly into Rhino.
We don’t use Alphacam anymore other than for converting fils if they are needed.
As such we don’t pay for support with the product which is extortionate and I’ve just received a letter stating that as we stopped paying for support they would require £5000 payment before being able to renew support.
We only ever need support if we change server with a different software version and need help with the licence utility and before could pay on a one off basis.
I could buy 5 Rhino licences for the fee they require and am concerned if we upgrade our server again.
I doubt AlfaCAM’s file format is open so any translator would need to be reverse engineered to read that format. The Solidworks translator in Rhino is licenced as far as I know so so Mcneel would probably not create a custom importer themselves. Datakit translators are about $1000.00 for formats that are quite common, the price of a custom importer they’d not sell many of would probably be more the the AlfaCAM maintenance. You could probably employ a temp to go through all your fills and save for less money.
Mark
If I understand correctly, you basically need to open every .ald file you have with Alphacam and save the same file as .3dm one? If so, you can try a Windows automation software like Autohotkey or one of his alternatives http://alternativeto.net/software/autohotkey/
You can find tutorials on youtube how to create your own macros, or as stated above you can employ somebody else to create for you an automation script.
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