Saving STL

[arenner]

I'm opening up an IGES model, with Mastercam X2. I rotate my model 90 degrees so that it is oriented lengthwise along the z-axis. Then I translate it into the positive z-space. Then I save it in ASCII format as an STL file. When I open up the STL again, the model is oriented lengthwise along the y axis. It looks like the y and z coordinates were swapped during the save/conversion to an STL. What the heck

[Guest]

Try using xform stl to get it into the postion you desire.

 

Working with stl's can be tricky and aggravating at first, they are useful and not "too" bad once you get a feel for what you want and how to get it.

[Mike Whitten CAD/CAM Contractors]

I my have misunderstood but maybe you must change the WCS back to top before outputing the STL. ?

 

Mike

[Colin Gilchrist]

An STL File is always output relative to the Top WCS plane. This can make them a pain to work with sometimes. John is right about using Xform STL. Its your best option for positioning an STL file.

 

Colin Gilchrist

The Boeing Company

MR2 and Beta test site

[kccadcam]

In V9 the STL would save correctly in any any plane, didn't matter.

In VX, you must switch to top plane before saving.

[Pete Rimkus from CNC Software Inc.]

"...An STL File is always output relative to the Top WCS plane. This can make them a pain to work with sometimes...."

 

Correct. (in both case - it IS always relative to the WCS and it CAN be a pain)

 

When we got requests to output STL with respect to the WCS, that's what we did - we didn't give you a choice of whether it would be w.r.t the WCS or in world co-ords. Our bad. In the 1st MR of X2, we're going to add an option to the SaveAs STL options, letting you decide which you want.

 

It should have been done that way to begin with, but a decision was made here not to tinker with the interface (i.e. not to add an option).

[arenner]

Thanks for all your suggestions. I'll change the WCS before saving and use Xform STL.

 

Pete, in the future it would be nice if the "default" method does not do extra things that the user didn't ask for. And as for a request like you received, maybe those kinds of things can be specified by those users in the Mastercam configuration settings. Thanks again for your input.

[Pete Rimkus from CNC Software Inc.]

arenner,

Yes, the switch for whether to output STL files w.r.t. the WCS or World coords will be a setting in Config.

[arenner]

Good, thanks.