Jimmy111 Posted January 15, 2013 Share Posted January 15, 2013 Anyone know of a good STL to Autocad solid converter? I have a old drawing that the original file got corrupted but I still have a STL model of. Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cad64 Posted January 15, 2013 Share Posted January 15, 2013 You could try this one: http://www.automapki.com/products/automesher-application.html. There is an evaluation version that's good for 5 days. Here's another one: http://www.sycode.com/products/stl_import_ac/index.htm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimmy111 Posted January 15, 2013 Author Share Posted January 15, 2013 Thanks. Ill give it a try and let you know how it works. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimmy111 Posted January 15, 2013 Author Share Posted January 15, 2013 Downloaded both. Neither converts stl to solid. Just allows importation and exportation of mesh. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cad64 Posted January 15, 2013 Share Posted January 15, 2013 Can you use the Autocad command CONVTOSOLID to convert the imported meshes to solids? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SLW210 Posted January 15, 2013 Share Posted January 15, 2013 Solidworks might do it if not too complicated, Inventor might also. AFAIK STL is a surface. STL files describe only the surface geometry of a three dimensional object without any representation of color, texture or other common CAD model attributes.An STL file describes a raw unstructured triangulated surface by the unit normal and vertices (ordered by the right-hand rule) of the triangles using a three-dimensional Cartesian coordinate system. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimmy111 Posted January 15, 2013 Author Share Posted January 15, 2013 I have a IGES file or STEP too. Not sure which. But have never had any luck converting those in Autocad. I have inventor but am not good at it. How would I go about dping this in inventor. convtosolid dosent work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SLW210 Posted January 15, 2013 Share Posted January 15, 2013 Been awhile since I used Inventor, but I think you just import the STEP or IGES then export to an ACIS (.sat) which can be imported into AutoCAD. The FREE Autodesk Inventor Fusion Technology Preview will do this, also. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimmy111 Posted January 15, 2013 Author Share Posted January 15, 2013 Is SAT a solid? Its Ascii isnt it? I have inventor 2010. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JD Mather Posted January 15, 2013 Share Posted January 15, 2013 You should be able to open ACIS (*.sat) or STEP (*.stp) directly in Mechanical if you are really running Mechanical ACISIN command or STEPIN command these file formats are the way to go rather than stl as stl is coarsely faceted surfaces. IGES (*.igs) can be surface or solid. you can also open these in Inventor or FREE Inventor Fusion http://labs.autodesk.com In Inventor Fusion you can save directly to dwg In Inventor 2010 it is something like (my memory fading) AEC Exchange>Save as dwg solid. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JD Mather Posted January 15, 2013 Share Posted January 15, 2013 Is SAT a solid? Its Ascii isnt it? A file can be saved in machine readable format (binary) or in human readable format (ASCII). It can be solid or surface. Binary files are smaller than ASCII files. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimmy111 Posted January 19, 2013 Author Share Posted January 19, 2013 Yes, Mechanical will import the sat and iges. However they are just surfaces and wont convert to solid. The problem is getting the models back to solid so they can be edited. This one I already just redrew. But that was 2 days of hard work. Id really like to find a better way of doing this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SLW210 Posted January 21, 2013 Share Posted January 21, 2013 Sounds like they were never saved as a solid. I would suggest getting Inventor/Solidworks and some training/tutorials/practice if this is common place. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JD Mather Posted January 21, 2013 Share Posted January 21, 2013 However they are just surfaces and wont convert to solid.The problem is getting the models back to solid so they can be edited. In Inventor or later versions of vanilla AutoCAD run the Sculpt command. (that is the icon name - I don't know what the AutoCAD command line commad is - something like surfsculpt). Convert to solid (whatever the actual command is) might also work in vanilla AutoCAD. AutoCAD Mechanical can be run as vanilla AutoCAD. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimmy111 Posted January 21, 2013 Author Share Posted January 21, 2013 I heard of sculpt but I dont have it on 2010. Ill download 2013 and see how it works. SLW210 I have thousands of models of parts that I made for decades. Some were in IGES and some sent to customers as STL. No matter how hard you try some files just get corrupted and cant be opened so I go looking for the backups. I get customers that I made molds 20 years ago call and expect me to have the files.... This day and age you dont want to turn down the jobs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whitespell Posted February 8, 2013 Share Posted February 8, 2013 Send me the .stl file. I will try to convert to solid - paulopintovsc@hotmail.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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