Exporting surfaces in STL format

[wibble]

Hi there,



I have just joined the forum and have an urgent question regarding exporting surfaces as stl format. I have tried a few quick searches but they turned up nothing.



1.) I am trying to export surfaces and not solids as stl, ProE (2001) seems to have a problem with this and doesn't do it. Can this be done and if so how? Since the STL format is a surface mesh format I find it incredible that it can't do this, although I can perhaps understand the need for sealed volumes. Are there any quick workarounds to this issue?





2.) When trying to export some solids as stl there appears to be a limit on minimum Chord height that can be set (I need very small values). Is this the just the angle control tolerance holding it back?





Thanks for you help!

 

[cschuette]

I may not be 100% correct here but I was under the impression that IGES files were the surface format, STL's are used to triangulate a solid. You may need to use an IGES export instead. Also, to obtain the minimum allowable value for Chord Height just enter 0 and when you leave the field it will default to what I believe is the minimum allowable value. Hope this helps!



cschuette

 

[peterkobal]

Hi,



Surfaces in Pro/E can not be exported as stl. This is probably because of the logic, that only volumes can be made with STL technology. Of course it would be nice to have sometimes surfaces exported as stl and then the volume made with stl software in the next step.



You can change chord height to smaller value by changing accuracy of the model. The smaller accuracy, the smaller chord height. The only problem is that change in accuracy can mean that your model will not regenerate automatically.

 

[gggggggggg]

i have an idea as a work around. this may be completely useless, but it also may just be simple enough to work. create a new assembly, assemble the part you want to export into the assembly. then, create a new part in the assembly. modify part, (new part) create, surface, copy, solid surfs. pick the part to be exported. now, open the new part, and you will have all the surfaces of the export part copied. hope this makes sense.



good luck

 

[cschuette]

In response to that last reply you would be much better creating a new part (without using the assembly) and using the Insert-> Shared Data and then select your surface references that you would like to use. You then have the option of making your references to the original part dependant or independant and eliminating many potential problems when you attempt to later modify the parts. This still isn't really the answer that you are looking for though I don't believe. As I stated earlier I just think that STL is the wrong format for what you want. You should be exporting to IGS if you are just using surfaces.

 

[Speling]

Insert

Thin protrusion

Than use quilt

You must make some kind of solid, than you can export that surface in stl format