prefered file type

[#Rekd™]

How about worst file types?

Customer: I have a .STL and an .IGS for you, which one you want? lol

Google Sketchup!

[Rocketmachinist]

I just got Mastercam at this shop a few weeks ago.

 

They are still working with Surfcam and the best file it can take is a iges. It is fun to show people how bad iges they can be. I pulled in new iges files and deleted everything from all the levels and yet still end up with hundreds of entities that will never get deleted because of how the translation process works. I tell them you guys can't see this because Surfcam doesn't even tell you how much stuff is on each level. Then I pull in a solid and say "look how many entities are on this part, 1"

[Bob W.]

How about worst file types?

Customer: I have a .STL and an .IGS for you, which one you want? lol

I can think of some engineers that produce some pretty crappy files no matter what the format...

[Pete Rimkus from CNC Software Inc.]

An interesting topic... I for one enjoy hearing the opinions expressed in this topic.

Here are a couple quick thoughts from headquarters....

 

1) .STP = .STEP ... as a couple of you surmised it's just a different extension .... just like .IGS and .IGES (but not .IGUESS :-))

2) STEP 203 and STEP 214 are both "application protocols" (sometimes you might here someone refer to them as "AP203" or "AP214") which are slightly separate ways of carrying (typically) mechanical product data for CAD/CAm purposes.

3) STEP AP242 is also becoming prevalent as a third option ... it essentially supports what the other 2 APs support as well as more semantic data such as GD&T/PMI/MBD.

4) Sometime its important to keep in mind the kernels used for some CAD products. As was stated here, SolidWorks & Mastercam are both Parasolid kernel modelers, making it easy to get geometry from SW --> MC. Likewise, Unigraphics NX is Parasolid-based. Autodesk Inventor, SpaceClaim, and KeyCreator are built on the ACIS kernel from Spatial. (Creo and Catia use proprietary modeling kernels). I'm mentioning this because sometimes we receive Parasolid files exported out of Inventor or ACIS .SAT files exported out of SolidWorks and this output to a different kernel format from the one used in the CAD package can easily lead to issues right off the bat

Edited June 1, 2016 by Pete Rimkus from CNC Software Inc.

[Guest]

An interesting topic... I for one enjoy hearing the opinions expressed in this topic.

Here are a couple quick thoughts from headquarters....

 

1) .STP = .STEP ... as a couple of you surmised it's just a different extension .... just like .IGS and .IGES (but not .IGUESS :-))

2) STEP 203 and STEP 214 are both "application protocols" (sometimes you might here someone refer to them as "AP203" or "AP214") which are slightly separate ways of carrying (typically) mechanical product data for CAD/CAm purposes.

3) STEP AP242 is also becoming prevalent as a third option ... it essentially supports what the other 2 APs support as well as more semantic data such as GD&T/PMI/MBD.

4) Sometime its important to keep in mind the kernels used for some CAD products. As was stated here, SolidWorks & Mastercam are both Parasolid kernel modelers, making it easy to get geometry from SW --> MC. Likewise, Unigraphics NX is Parasolid-based. Autodesk Inventor, SpaceClaim, and KeyCreator are built on the ACIS kernel from Spatial. (Creo and Catia use proprietary modeling kernels). I'm mentioning this because sometimes we receive Parasolid files exported out of Inventor or ACIS .SAT files exported out of SolidWorks and this output to a different kernel format from the one used in the CAD package can easily lead to issues right off the bat

Excellent info Mr Wizard

[gcode]

We recently received some STEP files from Electric Boat.

I don't know what the native CAD system is.

It was interesting, because both Catia and SpaceClaim  choked trying to open them.

 

Neither Mastercam or SolidWorks could open them as solids 

but both easily opened them as trimmed surface models

 

Once it was in SolidWorks as a trimmed surface I ran Import Diagnostics

That repaired a couple of gaps and yielded a nice solid model

 

This is the first time I've ever seen SpaceClaim fail to open a model

[Mick]

We recently received some STEP files from Electric Boat.

I don't know what the native CAD system is.

It was interesting, because both Catia and SpaceClaim  choked trying to open them.

 

Neither Mastercam or SolidWorks could open them as solids 

but both easily opened them as trimmed surface models

 

Once it was in SolidWorks as a trimmed surface I ran Import Diagnostics

That repaired a couple of gaps and yielded a nice solid model

 

This is the first time I've ever seen SpaceClaim fail to open a model

 

If you want to know what CAD system created the STEP file, just open it in a text editor.

 

This is the header of a STEP file from Sandvik Coromant:

 

ISO-10303-21;

HEADER;

/* Generated by software containing ST-Developer

 * from STEP Tools, Inc. (www.steptools.com)

 */

/* OPTION: using custom schema-name function */

FILE_DESCRIPTION(

/* description */ ('3-D model version:1'),

/* implementation_level */ '2;1');

FILE_NAME(

/* name */ 'C5-570-2C16052',

/* time_stamp */ '2015-10-19T07:28:48+02:00',

/* author */ ('InteractiveCad'),

/* organization */ ('AB Sandvik Coromant'),

/* preprocessor_version */ 'ST-DEVELOPER v15',

/* originating_system */ 'SIEMENS PLM Software NX 8.5',

 

The originating system is NX as seen above. It is sometimes handy when you need to know where the mess of a file you're working with, came from... LOL

 

Sometimes, the descriptor is formatted differently, and I've had a couple of STEP files that didn't contain any info, but most seem to.

[gcode]

Cool In the case of the previously mentioned files the culprit is ProE