igs translation

[Tim Pruett]

could someone please give me some kind of idea how to import an igs file to get the best possible result? For example, on the iges read parameters page, is it best to use read xyz or uv, check the tolerance box, scale data or overide units. When i import the igs file, if i check overide units it comes in in metric, so i change it to english. I end up with a bunch of dupe entities most of the time and the wireframe is usually blanked.

 

What i've found so far it is best to open a session of x first then pick the file i want to open/import. Then open the iges read parameters page and click read xyz and scale data. It comes in in english but i still have the wireframe blanked and a boat load of dupes. Please help. Thanks

[bellyup]

quote:

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could someone please give me some kind of idea how to import an igs file to get the best possible result?

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there is a real nice help file associated with the import box. using it and learning what you can do with it is probably better than someone giving you their settings which might not suit your purposes.

as far as the 'dupes'(im assuming you mean duplicates.), mcX has a 'delete duplicates' icon which works great and should take care of that.

 

hth

[Tim Pruett]

I've already read the help file and everything that I could find on the forum. Hopefully mr2 will help. Thanks for the response though.

[bellyup]

[P_Scott]

Tim Pruett,

 

Usually what I recommend to our customers is to bring in anything other than IGES. What is the source CAD system your supplier is using? Mcam can open a variety of CAD files directly. Some of these file types include Solidworks part files (.SLD PRT not .sldDRW), Parasolid files (.X_T), Cadkey (.CDL), ACIS based solids (.SAT), and Step files (.STEP or .STP). Mcam also has a couple add-on converter licenses for Pro-E files (both .PRT and .ASM) and Catia files.

 

If I were opening a file, I'd ask for the most direct file format I could get. IGES is traditionally full of "duplicate" entities and other entities which are not identical and not considered "dupes". You may have overlapping entities such as a Spline over an Arc. Because they aren't the same type of entity, they aren't duplicates and it becomes very tricky to "clean up" the geometry before applying toolpaths. It is also time consuming. Having the direct CAD source file is easier to deal with and less time consuming. Most of the time you can apply toolpaths to any opened file almost immediately. The only thing that usually takes time is moving the part to an appropriate machine position. With the WCS, this has almost become a thing of the past. HTH

[Tim Pruett]

Thanks Peter,

 

I showed your'e response to out designer and he said from now on he'd output everything .step for me. I tried the latest file that way and it worked so much better. With an iges file the part rotated extremely slow, but in the step format it rotates as fast as I want. And it came in clean, no dupelicate entities. The only bad part was it was devided up among over l,000 levels. I just moved it all to the lvl I wanted. Thanks again.

[P_Scott]

Tim Pruett,

 

Glad I could help. That's what we're all here for.

[Pete Rimkus from CNC Software Inc.]

Regarding the IGES issues mentioned by Tim Pruett...

- the 'blanked' entities was a problem we introduced in X MR1 that has been corrected in the upcoming X MR2 release. IGES flags entities as being 'subordinate' if another entity depends on it, and we were accidentally blanking ALL subordinate entities, where we should have been more selective.

- the 'surface trimming method' flag on the Options page is really there as a backup if you don't like the trimmed surface results you get the 1st time. The IGES format can store trimmed surfaces in 2 ways. The file is supposed to have both representations in it, and through years of experience, we set the default value of that flag based on what CAD system created the IGES file. Some systems output more reliable XYZ trimming data (which will be a little slower coming in) than UV data, and vice versa. My recommendation would be to let Mastercam decide, and only change the setting if you get unexpected results - i.e. funky or untrimmed trimmed surfaces.

[Tim Pruett]

Thanks for the info Pete. That helps a bit. I did a search and read about the blanked entities, but I thought it said the problem was fixed in MR1. My bad. Thanks again