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Index › Programming Questions & Help › Programs › Export in 3D format
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Export in 3D format (Read 1183 times)
lubat
Export in 3D format
Jul 14th, 2009, 9:45am  
I have a question. Which classes, libraries in Processing allows to export graphical data in 3D format?
If I write program in Processing and want to export geometry to a file and import it to structural analysis software, such as SolidWorks Simulation Premium, what requires 3D files, will DXF format be suitable?
As written in the section on  Rendering Modes: "Lines and triangles from P3D or OPENGL rendering modes can be sent directly to a DXF file. ", but when we rad more about DXF library, it says: "DXF ibrary writes all current triangle-based graphics (polygons, boxes, spheres, etc.) to a DXF file.... your entire scene is nothing but a long list of lines and triangles. This means that a shape created with sphere() method will be made up of hundreds of triangles, rather than a single object." So, DXF is presented as 2D graphics?
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gll
Re: Export in 3D format
Reply #1 - Jul 14th, 2009, 10:03am  
If you plan to do FEM with DXF exporter, you'll need to recreate your your structure within SolidWorks. This process is complex and involve recreation of solids out of a set of triangles. Some CAD software have this kind of feature, but they need to interpret sometime ambiguous information.

DXF library will export the geometry into a subset of triangles.

There's other alternatives, http://labelle.spacekit.ca/supercad (this one support only some primitives, but you'll get something similar to the DXF exporter).You can export in OBJ, autolisp,...

The other one is http://ANAR.ch, which is a sceneGraph and where the exporters support more primitives. I'm working on a ANSYS exporter. It works well, but it's not included yet in the current release. In ANAR+, when a shpere\cube is exported, if there's an equivalent in the target CAD system, the form will be preserved. A sphere won't be exported into a subset of triangles but as a solid\parametric object.

When you want to do FEM analysis, you need to define a structure that contains node informations, otherwise, you need to  recreate your geometry for the FEM software.

What are you trying to do? I'm curious...
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Cedric
Re: Export in 3D format
Reply #2 - Jul 14th, 2009, 10:37am  
I had a similar problem and found a way to import them into 3dmax and there I was able to create a "watertight" 3d Model out of it.  There are probably other 3d programms that can do this.
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lubat
Re: Export in 3D format
Reply #3 - Jul 14th, 2009, 2:52pm  
I need to create geometry in processing for structure made of composite materials, that could be prefabricated later. I'd like to export it to a file, and analyze different taping patterns by some FEM software, it doesn't have to be SolidWorks.
I am trying to chose between Solidworks, Strand7,Abaqus, or possibly ANSYS.
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gll
Re: Export in 3D format
Reply #4 - Jul 16th, 2009, 12:02am  
The ANSYS exporter is nearly ready. It works with ANAR+ 'solid' primitives (cubes,box,spheres). It's on my TODO list, it should be ready soon.

I'm interrested into Abaqus as well, but I hadn't time to look at the programming interface in Abaqus. It would be good if you could provide information (links) on how to produce Abaqus files.

I'm less familiar with Strand7 and Solidworks, but I'm interrested too. I had a COMSOL workshop recently but I didn't had too much time to look at it deeply. I'm currently using ANSYS. The basic idea of ANAR+ is to reduce the intermediary steps between the model and the simulation.

If you could provide information on file types we should provide for each software would help.

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'Watertight'. I know that FormZ was able to recreate a 'solid'\Brep model out of a collection of triangles. It's good to know that 3DMax is able to it as well. It became fairly common in CAD softwares to provide such feature. I think ANSYS is able to do it as well. But problems comes when you have faces sharing regions (a shared vertex, a shared point or two different faces at the exact same position). Then it becomes ambiguous and you get into troubles.
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