Thanks Tim for your suggestions. I will take them into consideration moving forward.—-Mark
Being a novice, I just discovered this recently, but it might help you. When exporting files from Rhino 6 to SolidWorks I have solved problems using IGES and choosing either SolidWorks solids or SolidWorks Surfaces in a dropdown menu within the Options pop-up window within the Export pop-up window.
sorry for late reply, also i haven’t gotten a chance to read other replies.
this is my solidworks settings for importing files, found in Options>Import
here are my rhino settings for exporting step files:
if you open the step file directly in SWX, it should bring in each part as a solid into a PART file.
if you want each solid in your rhino file to come in as seperate PARTS for an assembly toggle this in SWX import. but this will bring in every solid in your rhino file as a part, not desired if you have a part with details in rhino, in my case a main part with pipes. i don’t have many parts in my assembly so i have a script to export a selection as a dummy file, in SWX a script to import dummy file.
dunno if this helps, looks like a lot of people have chimed in and probably have better info for you. good luck!
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Thank you, I am going to gather all I got from everyone’s help and share it with the guys I work with.—-Mark
so much to read, so little time. scanning through i saw you said when they import it’s coming in as a “blob”. make sure this is toggle off or it will boolean union all the imported bodies. not sure if this addresses your issue, just another thing to check.
Hi forum helpers, I’ve spent a little time with my co-workers that use Solidworks this week.
To be more clear about my claims, I failed to mention the workflow in total. So, stepping back some. First, all the geometry was created in Rhino. That was then given to an NX user. He then filleted all the surfaces as to specs. He then sent that filleted file back to me as a step file. I opened it fine.
At that point I did no diagnostics on it and sent it to the Solidworks user. He then opened it and did a diagnostics check on it. He had many gaps and bad surfaces. I think this is where Solidworks thinks of it as a blob it can do nothing with.
To finish up we used the Solidworks diagnostics to fix all gaps and surfaces using Rhino. That worked well.
I learned that NX can do some amazing fillets, but it does complicate a model too. Might ask Why NX? It is used along with CNC cutter.
Thanks for all the help. I might try the Fusion 360 way for filleting. There were close to 4000 surfaces in the file being worked on.
Was the file you sent the same file you opened in Rhino, or re-exported from Rhino?
-Pascal
I more than likely re-exported it. My co-worker sometimes asks me to do a “save as “. We use flash memory sticks also between computers, because of the file size can’t be sent through the mail easily. Ran into a bad memory stick this week! Hope it helps.—-Mark
is your file consisted of solid bodies or surfaces?
did you explode the block when you imported the step file from NX?
my recommendation, as to what works best to be, transferring files from solidworks to rhino every day
if all bodies in the file are solids → Parasolid export
If all bodies in the file are surfaces → Save as older rhino, usually rhino 4, and send to Sld 2019.
If mixed bodies, I usually split then in two files, since the import in solidworks keep the current Cplane Reference, so it is easy to add 2 +2.
Also, if the block inside rhino is not exploded, usually I have a bad time
If the surfaces inside rhino were joined using join edge command , bad time
High degree surfaces, also bad time.
Split the high degree surfaces in lower degree ones.
Over all, using save as older rhino files works a lot better than any other file type.
I still find some holes, or one or two exploded surfaces, but nothing too hard to fix in solidworks.
Altamira, thanks for those methods and advice. I wasn’t aware of the file coming from NX would be a block ? —-Mark
It depends how you opened the file, but you can use the SelBlock command to check. For some reason, if I have a file that was imported as a block, I have troubles when exporting then, if I have a block that is from another rhino file, it works fine.
Solidworks is a very expensive error sound software IMO, if we work with sound on, it is error sound after error sound all day xD
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Phil Cook (from SimplyRhino) has published an excellent 3-part tutorial on the roundtrip of 3D geometry between Rhino 5 and SW 2016.
Keyconcepts: 1) clean up surface geometry by merging all coplanar faces before export. 2) run “Shrink Trimmed Surfaces” (on a copy of your file) and check that you have a closed polysurface (without naked or mon-manifold edges) before exporting to SolidWorks. 3) tip: consider adding 1 or 2 dummy-objects in your 1.export to make it easier to update later on.
Part 3/3 (35:08) - Export to SolidWorks 2016 of finished geometry from Rhino 5 -& updating it:
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