export wires as solids

Is there a way when exporting an assembly with all its nice wires that the wires come out as solids? These are exported to be rendered.

Having some machinery with floating plugs and no leads looks kind of .........odd

Whats the work around that people are currently using.

If your render software can read iges, you can tick the option export cable surfaces during export.


If you require obj or stl, the only work around I could think of was the following :


In your assy, create a simp rep default exclude and only include the cables which will have the same color in the render (or same diameter for that matter). Now export this assembly as iges, uncheck everything but datum curves and points. Import this iges in a new part and you should get the trajectory curves of your cables. Add a solid variable section sweep over the chain(s) then export as obj or stl.


Repeat for different cable colors/diameters.


If you find something else, Im all ears and interested !


Nick

we have everytime.... rebuild wires in our maya renders to customers.

I bring the iges file in as a part file (it becomes a solid chunk), then hide (exclude)the real cable and assemble the solid iges part in as default. then i can publish to free edrawings etc..