STL to Surfaces/Solids

[Tim Johnson]

Is it possible to do this in "X"?

[deckerc]

no

[robk]

I use solidworks for that kind of stuff, but @ least you could get a visual in mastercam by shading the stl file.

Try this; Xform, Xform STL, select the file, when the STL File Xform box pops up enter 0 for # Tris, hit Alt.S to shade the STL.

Not what you were looking for, but a cool little trick nevertheless.

[Fig sign]

It is still possible in ver 9

[deckerc]

v9 wouldn't do it either. there was a chook, stl to surfaces but it would die about half way thru. the STL models we machine are probably between 10,000 and 50,000 triangles. i'm sure the stl chook worked for simple/normal stuff though.

[Fig sign]

Yes ,I mean stl2srf.dll.

I was lucky up to 150000 surfaces .

True ,it may blow your station off ,may be not.

Anyway ,most of time you do not need to convert it at all ,

You may machine straight on stl file .

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Mastercam can create a toolpath on a CAD file that resides on disk rather than being open in Mastercam. Using the CAD file option provides faster processing time. Mastercam extracts the information it needs to create the toolpath from the file, so that you do not need to retrieve the CAD file into Mastercam, which frees memory for toolpath creation.

You can choose to include a CAD file in a surface toolpath by toggling CAD file on the Surface/Solid/CAD menu that displays after you choose Toolpaths, Surface from the Main Menu or Operations Manager. Choose one of the following options:

 

¨ N - Does not prompt you to select a CAD file during toolpath creation. N is the default setting.

 

¨ Y - Prompts you to select a CAD file after you have entered the surface toolpath parameters. You can then position the CAD file using the CAD File menu.

 

CAD file types

A StereoLithography (STL) file is composed of triangular facets of data that represent surface and solid models. An STL file is the file format used by stereolithography machines which create part prototypes using a computer-controlled laser to cure a photo-sensitive resin. STL files can be created by other CAD programs, or by scanning a part model with a digitizer.

Other CAD file types that can be imported into Mastercam for surface machining can be found under the List files by type in the File Open dialog box when you retrieve a CAD file.

 

Note: You can include any combination of surface, solid, and CAD data in a surface toolpath.

 

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if you have bad stl file ,use :

 

Date: 25 February 2004

 

Programmer: CNC Software, Inc.

 

Description:

 

This chook will try to close (or "heal") gaps in an STL file. An STL file

made from a solid model will likely have no gaps (no free edges). An STL

file made from a surface model will likely have gaps at the surface edges

of up to the tolerance used to create the STL file.

 

Input:

Gap tolerance - An attempt will be made to close gaps which are smaller than

this size. Enter a gap tolerance which is slightly larger than the

tolerance used to create the STL file.

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