DXF wireframe to solid or surface in ProE

[drvogler]

Hey guys,



Hoping someone can point me in the right direction here.



I have a .DXF wireframe (it's a good wireframe too, nice and detailed). I desperately need to get this into a solid or surface format so we can use it in ProE, and export it via IGES (with solid and or surface data) to another application.



I'm sure somebody has been down this path.



It renders quite nicely in Rhino, BTW, but all exports/conversions to ProE have yeilded nothing, or just the wires.



Any help appreciated.



Dave

 

[miked]

If it shades in rhino then you have surfaces right?



Select the surfaces in rhino and use

file>export selected





Failing that, try turning on all of your layers in pro



Mike

 

[cadsculptor]

Dave,



How complex is the file? Can you post it or e-mail it separately?



I suspect that the only way to do this will be a manual reconstruction in Pro/E. Unless you can get a better export format from the creator...



If you just need solid geometry and don't need it to be parametric, this can go pretty fast. You can create sketch planes through apporpriate DXF edges, use edge in sketcher, then extrude up to curve or up to pnt/vertex for the depth.



If the geometry contains complex curvature you may be able to construct the model using surfaces by boundaries.



Regards,

Paul

 

[drvogler]

miked,



That's what I thought too. I've tried everything I can think of, short of a complete reconstruction (no time for that). And no surfaces will come into ProE.



The file is too big (120K zipped) to post, but I'll mail it to cadsculptor and anyone else that wants to try their luck...



Dave

 

[Moroso]

Dave,





It sounds like you might have a polymesh surface, could you email it to me, I'll try to convert to nurb for you in Rhino or you could try it yourself click on the entities to highlight then go up to the command line and type in meshtonurb, let it convert then delete the old polymesh surfaces.



Brian



[email protected]

 

[cadsculptor]

Dave, Mike,



I just checked a 3D DXF file in Rhino & Pro/E. Rhino recognizes the polygon and polyface meshes as surface features. Pro/E sees only the edges and imports the file as curves.



The problem is that eventhough Rhino can shade the faces, it won't export them as surface geometry.



Paul

 

[drvogler]

Ok, thanks cadsculptor and Moroso.



Anyone know if it's possible to work around this? I started draping surfaces over the wires in Pro, and it's gonna be about a days worth of work, at least.



Seems like there should be a better way.



Since the file doesn't belong to me, I've decided that I probably shouldn't mail it. It _may_ be proprietary. And better to be safe than sorry.



So I can't email it guys. Sorry.



Moroso, If I convert it to nurb, what good does that do exactly? Does ProE understand nurb surfaces better?



Dave

 

[cadsculptor]

Brian,

Great tip! that worked great on my little test model.



Dave,

Hope it works on yours, too.



Paul

 

[cadsculptor]

Dave,



The meshtonurbs command actually creates real surface data that Pro/E understands. You should have no problem exporting an IGES file from Rhino and importing it into Pro/E. You don't need to delete the polyfaces if you don't mind having the edge curves in Pro/E...



Paul

 

[Moroso]

Hey guys,



The meshtonurb command works really good to convert to nurbs but the model will come into Pro/E as a faceted model, little surfaces if it's a tightly meshed surfaces.



Pro/E 2001 only understands nurb surfaces for working on. You won't get anywhere working on a polymesh surface.



No problem about the proprietary info, totally understand.



Hope everything works

 

[marlon494]

I am trying to convert a free 3ds F-15 file to a ProE part. I have downloaded PolyTrans and converted to a STL and a DXF. I cannot do anything with the STL. The DXF turns the wireframe into curves, which I can use as datums, but I want to get a solid part from it. I do not think PolyTrans can convert to nurbs (whatever that is). Is there any better software to do this with? Prefarably free?



Thanks for any help!



Marlon