At the moment I’m partnering with a mechanical engineer who uses Spaceclaim as the main design tool. He has worked with another industrial designer who would send him Rhino files. He then just import the Rhino file and start building features on the model in Spaceclaim (which is a very efficient workflow if you have seen it you know that) due to the fact that the two software has a “Round Trip Integration” thing established from many years ago.
THE PROBLEM: The models from me always end up being recognized by his Spaceclaim as “spline faces” while it’s 100% closed polysurface in my Rhino. He claims that the Rhino files he received in the past rarely had this issue. The files he received in the past also contain freeform surfaces, but Spaceclaim can at least recognize the geometric shapes like plane or cylinder. But from my files, even the planes are recognized as “spline face”.
So we’ve been trying different import/export options from both sides, smaller or bigger tolerance. Nothing worked. We called up the other designer he worked with before, that guy didn’t have any special trick. Now we’re stuck at the painful workflow that for every iteration of every part I deliver to him, he will need to spend quite some time, sometimes hours, on stitching the surfaces into an editable solid before he can do his work.
Please share your experience or guess. I tend to believe that my Rhino experience is all right, but please do point it out if by your experience this is related to surfacing technique. Thanks in advance!
FYR, here is the screenshot in his Spaceclaim showing the raw imported surfaces with the message announcing this model is not solid.
Are both products running the latest versions? The reason I ask is that when I stopped my annual maintenance on SpaceClaim at 2012+, it’s ability to work with Rhino files went downhill fast with Rhino 5 files. That makes sense, since my version was frozen in time but Rhino continued moving forward.
If you are running Rhino 6, you might have to make sure your SpaceClaim partner is also running the latest version.
Thanks for the experience Dan! The SapceClaim is up to date for sure. We know (by trying) that SpaceClaim doesn’t take Rhino 6 file, so we have been using V5 files for exchange. I’m on V6 (export to V5 when I send files to him). I have also tried rebuilding a part in V5 but the problem remains.
Hello - what is the tolerance in the Rhino file? If you select the object and run the What command in Rhino, what does it say about edge and vertex tolerance?
I have always worked under the default 0.001mm distance and 1 degree angle tolerance. In this project, I don’t recall doing anything to cause Rhino to say “tolerance has to be doubled to…”.
Now that we’re talking about tolerance, I did use the V6 function RemoveAllNakedMicroEdges several times in this file, though not on all parts I have created (which bear the same import problem reported in OP). Could it be that this command has increased the file tolerance?
Here’s what I got from what:
polysurface
ID: 1a807b63-285d-4317-be7d-09c2149380c7 (38)
Object name: ID_HU_body_0620_solid
Layer name: 0614 update::0620 body solid (d0bd)
Render Material:
source = from layer
index = -1
Attribute UserData:
UserData ID: 8CBE6160-5CBD-4b4d-8CD2-7CE0A7C8C2D8
Plug-in: Displacement
description: EdgeSoftening object data
saved in file: yes
copy count: 4
Geometry:
Valid polysurface.
Closed solid polysurface with 88 surfaces.
Edge Tally:
218 manifold edges
Edge Tolerances: 0.000 to 0.002
median = 0.000 average = 0.000
Vertex Tolerances: 0.000 to 0.001
median = 0.000 average = 0.000
Render mesh: 88 fast meshes 8497 vertices 8806 polygons
Analysis mesh: none present
OK - nothing leaps out at me there as hideous but the edge tols are larger than tolerance - I don’t know what tolerances SC expects - if less than .002 then I suppose that might be the problem.
Same here. Spaceclaim lost interest in supporting Rhino users so I stopped using it. direct Rhino imports/export became unusable and I had to default to step files.
Thank you very much for that perspective. Indeed, “SpaceClaim has lost interest in supporting Rhino”, that’s might just be it. We also found that STEP provides better result than 3DM. MY SC user partner will have to live with it till, at least, finishing the case.
Unfortunately from now on I don’t know any good workflow to bridge ID and MD except those decade old ones. Fusion360 is not reliable enough for daily use. Other programs are too heavy and also lots of rework.
