Saving stock model to different format

[White Feather]

Where I'm at we build a lot of thinwalled airframe components such as cowling pieces and fuselage pieces out of large-ish chunks of billet... these are almost always comprised of 100% radi either true 5 axis or in many cases completely 3d machined these parts rarely have any straight edges and many of them don't have any holes or any other features.

 

I'm normally machining these off of holding tabs using a subplate and locating with dowel pins in a few of the holding tabs which will be mown off on the last op.

 

These parts can be tricky to get a good alignment on the CMM, I'd like to be able to provide the CMM programmer with an in process stock model similar to the STL file you get by saving the verification stock.. this would allow him to create his initial alignment from the dowel pin holes used for fixturing.. the only issue with this is he can't do anything with an STL file..

 

Is there an easy way to save this file as a .stp? I've tried opening the .stl then save some or save as a .stp file but it never works..

 

What I have to work with is Mastercam, Autodesk Inventor (I am clueless with Inventor) and the Calypso DMIS software.

 

Any help greatly appreciated.

[crazy^millman]

No you cannot save it as an .stp. STL by nature is a just points that are messed together to look like the part, but is not a real surface or solid shape. The best way is to make a solid that is what you part will look like when done.

Verisurf can check to the stl and I would think Calypso could read in the STL and inspect to it also.

[White Feather]

That's about what I figured.. I was just hoping there was a magic trick I wasn't aware of.

 

I'll just give him some wireframe to use for his alignment, that's not really a big deal.. it would just be nice to have a solid of the actual material condition between ops so that he can program offline and then not run into unexpected surfaces. He might be able to do this off the .stl but he doesn't know how to make it happen; I'll check on this and see if I can help him out... having time to actually make a solid would be problematic most of the time.

 

Thanks.