Editing stl files?

[Michael Sullivan]

Does anyone have a way to do this?

We have had a few instances where this would be helpful and we were unable to do it. We just end up with a corrupt.stl file. we've tried opening the file(.stl)in Mastercam, trimming/deleting whatever(which works fine) but......when we go to save, it saves as a MCX file. If you choose "save as stl" we end up with a blank .stl file. It seems like it can't translate back when you open it in Mastercam.

 

any input would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks,

 

-Mike

[Pete Rimkus from CNC Software Inc.]

Mike,

When you read an STL file into to mastercam via File/Open (or via File/Convert in V9 & earlier) all we are doing is creating lines at all the STL triangles edges.

We don't really support an entity that holds all that triangular facet data.

What's your ultimate goal? You can put surface toolpaths on STL files, and use containment boundaries to limit the parts of the STL file that get cut.

[Müřlıń®]

stl2surf.dll?

 

I have then trimmed the surfs to a boundary.

 

Dunno if that is what you need...

 

You can then take the triangular surfs and run them through a 3rd party filter and smooth them out to get a generic surf.

[Colin Gilchrist]

Michael,

 

We ran into this very issue. We bought a piece of software called Magics RP which lets you edit an STL file directly. It is not exactly cheap, but it works great. It lets you rebuild and reduce the number of triangles on any STL. I've taken STL files that had tons of problems and completely healed them in Magics. I've also taken STL files that were 50MB and reduced them to less than 2MB.

 

Materialise home page

 

HTH,

[Colin Gilchrist]

I just finished machining a fairly large mold in Verify. The STL I saved out of the Verify simulation was 1,287,510 triangles. With Magics I just reduced it to 17,066 triangles by doing a triangle reduction with a smallest detail setting of .005.

[Michael Sullivan]

Pete,

Occasionally we need to edit/trim the stl files and still be able to use them as stock to verify. I was just wondering if Mastercam supported this function.

For instance,there has been a few times that I end up with a slug of material in my stl that in the real world would not be there so I wanted to be able to trim it away for the next operation verify. I understand how Mastercam is treating the stl's now so that's not an option at this point.

Maybe for the future if there is enough call for this it could become an inhancement?

 

Colin,

Thanks for the reply and link, That is exactly what I was looking for. I was just hoping Mastercam was capable. I will have to look into Magics RP and see if i can get the old budget approved.

 

Thanks again guys

 

-Mike

[Colin Gilchrist]

Michael,

 

My guess is that an STL editor would be too expensive for CNC Software to add to Mastercam. The Verify module is licensed from a 3rd party software vendor, it is not written by Mastercam. Try getting a 30 day evaluation of Magics 11.0. Once you start using it and discover all the tools that are available you will see how powerful and complex it is. When I was evaluating Magics I was able to setup a web training session with one of the Applications engineers at Materialise. Kevin was able to get me up and running in about an hour. For what you need to do; Magics is really your only option. Now getting your management to cough up the money is another issue.

 

HTH,

[Müřlıń®]

quote:

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Now getting your management to cough up the money is another issue.

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Heh ya it always is....

 

Stl2surf. Trim to boundaries or surfs. Perhaps a slight pain to delete all the unwanted polygons, but it doessnt take too long if you can window most of them.

 

I never thought about it but you might not need to even delete the extras....then come back and save some and get the body...never tried that

 

Loosen up tolerances and solidify.

 

Select as solid stock This may not be the best way but it works and it is free....

 

But that STL editor would be neat to have in the 'ol toolbox

[Michael Sullivan]

......to management coughing up the money!

We're getting really busy,I may be able to slip it through in the near future.

[Colin Gilchrist]

Murlin,

 

This will only work on clean STL files. If your STL has holes, reversed normals, self-intersecting triangles, and Bad edges STL2SURF will not work. It's also pretty hard to clean up some of the models we get with a million triangles. It also takes forever and a day on some of files we work with to even run STL2Surf. It will work on some files, just like STLHeal will work on some.

 

It would be really nice to get some of the tools for editing STL files in Mastercam, but I'm guessing it is pretty low on the totem pole.

[Colin Gilchrist]

Murlin,

 

This will only work on clean STL files. If your STL has holes, reversed normals, self-intersecting triangles, and Bad edges STL2SURF will not work. It's also pretty hard to clean up some of the models we get with a million triangles. It also takes forever and a day on some of files we work with to even run STL2Surf. It will work on some files, just like STLHeal will work on some.

 

It would be really nice to get some of the tools for editing STL files in Mastercam, but I'm guessing it is pretty low on the totem pole.

[Colin Gilchrist]

ahh, double post

[Michael Sullivan]

I get errors every time I try to use STL2SURF. I got the file from the ftp site. Is there a newer/updated version for X2 Mr1 Sp1?

[Colin Gilchrist]

I bet your STL file just has too many problems for STL2surf to work.

[Müřlıń®]

Hrmmm I never got any errors.

 

But I never had a million triangles either, but several megs...

 

What CAD package are you guys getting your STL's from?

 

I am going to do some experimenting.

[Colin Gilchrist]

Murlin,

 

I'm creating STL files from Mastercam solids or surface models. The geometry comes from Catia originally, so that may cause us some issues. Most of the STL files I'm working with are in the 10-80 Mb range.

 

Quite often we are taking a finished part from Catia, adding excess material around the edges of the part, then using the new model to create an STL of our raw stock for VERICUT. I can't share any of our data, otherwise I'd give you an example.

[Michael Sullivan]

Mastercam also,originally from Inventor.

I was just reading some old posts.

Is there a version of stl2surf for X2? I saw some other people looking for it in the old threads and could not find a confirmation that it exists. the version on the ftp which I have does not specify. here are the errors:

 

[Michael Sullivan]

http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o8/mich...L2surferror.jpg

[Müřlıń®]

quote:

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Is there a version of stl2surf for X2?

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Not sure.. last time I used the dll was in ver 9.

 

But I have used it several times with sucess...

 

I hadn't even thought about it cause I have 9.1 on my machine and it is never getting deleted

 

Citia...well Catia files are my least favorite files to work with...

 

If you are just going to use the STL for stock verify I would loosen up the res and exxport it again.

 

An STL doesnt have to have zillions of surfs to be accurate within .005.

 

I never even noticed or used the STL heal...it has to be there for a reason, and I think you guys are finding out why...

 

But if you are offsetting surfs and trying to keep them water tight, I can see where that would gap out like a big dog.

 

I would go in and set the chordial break to about 1 degree. set your tolerances as tight as you can before you offset the stock on the outside of your part.

 

Then you can just solidify with mc's solids with a huge tolerance like .01.

 

Sounds like you guys really use alot of STL's...

 

I only use them when I absolutely have too...

[5kax]

hello

 

to work on STL use solidworks. you can make solid wiht STL in option before loading STL file

[Colin Gilchrist]

I totally agree Murlin, but with Mastercam all you get is an output resolution. The creation of the STL is totally automatic. With Magics I can reduce the number of triangles and see the difference it makes on the quality of the model. Magics has unlimited undo/redo, so I can really get the quality I want and easily fix problems that come up. I've taken horrible models and fixed them in a few minutes. The fix wizard in Magics is superb and the learning curve is virtually nil. You can be up and running with a few hours of training.

 

Are there some basic tools available in Mastercam to accomplish simple fixes to STL files? Yes. At some point though another tool is necessary. I think this will depend heavily on the complexity of your models.

[Michael Sullivan]

I use them for just about every job now. Nothing beats the real life stock scenario.

[Colin Gilchrist]

+1000 Michael

 

Especially when you can then take the machined STL, load it in Stock Setup and get a translucent solid of your cut stock overlaid on top of your part. You just can't beat visually seeing where you have excess material or have gouged into the part.

[Müřlıń®]

Holy crap...30 minutes and stl heal is still running....

 

This never happened in ver9

 

Stl creation and verify was almost instantaneous on extremely large files....

 

I run Proe wildfire 3.0 on Sun servers that are equillivant to about a 800 Mhtz PII.

 

It runs greeat post fast and vericut runs very fast....

 

I am extremly dissappointed

 

I bet I can take the same crankshaft model and bring it into 9 and it will make a watertight STL the first try...

 

I will find out tomarrow...I am totally bummed.....task manager...killing the freaking stlheal thread...

[Michael Sullivan]

OK, I got the stl2surf.dll to run under v9. I guess it just does not work in X2. It took a long time to process but seemed to work ok.

I saved it as a Mc9 and........ tommorow I will try to open it in X2,edit it and "save as STL". Then I'll bring it into verify.

It seems to be the long way around but if it works it will do for now. At least until I can get my hands on some other software. I will post tommorow of my success or failure.

 

Merlin,

In your post you said "solidify the stl". Do I need solids to accomlish this? I don't have the solids module. I don't really see it's justified/necessary at this point since I have a seat of Inventor to do all of my modeling. Not that I wouldn't like to have it but.... I have bigger fish to fry for now.

I prefer to work with surfaces and wireframe for all my toolpathing anyway because it gives me more control.