Importing solids from other CAD systems

[Justin Beebe at Folsom Tool]

I am wondering if there is software available that can check the integrity of solid models that are imported into mastercam from Catia and Solidworks. For example: If I take a solid that was made in Catia, import it into Solidworks, then read the Solidworks file into Mastercam how can I know for sure that the model I am working with in Mastercam is an identical match to the original Catia model.

 

Thanks in advance.

[#Rekd™]

Hi Justin,

 

Not sure about that software but before I had Catia I would get the customer with Catia to save it as a .stp/.step file and I never had a problem.

 

If you need a Catia file saved as a .stp/.step or a NX (Unigraphics) send it over.

 

John

[Justin Beebe at Folsom Tool]

Thanks for the reply Hockey Guy. I appreciate the offer. We have Catia, Solidworks and Mastercam where I work. This request is more to satsfy our customers. Instead of having to do time consuming overlays between CAD systems I was hoping there was some software available that could possibly mathmatically check the models. If not I was wondering how other companies are dealing with this issue.

[Müřlıń®]

Thanks for the reply Hockey Guy. I appreciate the offer. We have Catia, Solidworks and Mastercam where I work. This request is more to satsfy our customers. Instead of having to do time consuming overlays between CAD systems I was hoping there was some software available that could possibly mathmatically check the models. If not I was wondering how other companies are dealing with this issue.

 

 

I have not heard of software for that.

 

But what we do is:

 

 

Match system tolerances between systems.

 

Take it to 6 decimals.

 

Make sure if you get any Catia models from your customer you use the same tolerance settings they used to build the part. Then tighten up the tolerances for export between your CAD-CAD systems in house.

 

STEP should then do a fine job.

[MotorCityMinion]

Interesting topic. Although the customers I deal with do not require the same level of validation as your customers do, I'd also like to know about some type of verification software, with a easy button. In this situation, the customer may have the answer as you would think that they would also have to verify the end product. Although still tedious, most CAD systems will allow you import an X_B that was exported out of MC (not necessarily created in MC though) and perform some type of comparative analysis. System tolerance settings between apps may play a role here as well. The upper end CAD apps have the tools necessary to repair and patch poorly created models as well as advanced surfaces creation tools not available in MC, that do not necessarily translate well into other apps. This is why it's almost impossible to get a good history tree from Solidworks into MC. When I first started working with customer solids this bothered me a lot. At least half of the models I work with that are customer supplied have something wrong with them. Some can be repaired easily, others are so bad I start from scratch and reference using curves created from sections of the original model then do an overlay. I recently worked on a model that looked great in SW and NX but would not translate well into MC. I tried exporting from both apps as X_B and step files with different revision levels and opened up those conversions in the opposite app and they still looked good. I even went so far as to duplicate the surfaces in SW, turn them into solids and do some boolean ops to recreate the model with out gaps and it looked great. Export as a X_B or step file then bring into MC and had no luck. Gaps, patches not tangent to anything, poor rad blends and so on appeared every time when brought into MC. This can be a positive situation as it can alert you to a crappy model that will give you trouble further down the road. IMO, most of this malarkey can can be traced back to the modeling skills of the designer, and the original CAD app it was created in and is not the fault of MC. Yes, I have too much time on my hands this morning.

 

Merlin beat me to the system tolerance settings suggestions, gotta learn to type faster and not over analyze my post.

 

 

[Justin Beebe at Folsom Tool]

Thanks for the replies. I'll look into those suggestions.

[mkd]

how bout Kubotech or Icompare?

 

kubotech is more $$ but it is pretty user friendly/ advanced.

[Justin Beebe at Folsom Tool]

mkd

 

Thanks for the advice. I'll look into those options.