Model visual check

JRP

I'm looking for possibility how to quickly check my Mecway model and compare it with CAD model.

Is there any possibility to import nodes as points into Solidworks? Whole CAD model is too complex to import it into Mecway as STEP.

Sergio

Did you try to export the CAD from Solidwork (remove small components before) as an STL and import in Mecway? With solid meshes sometimes I export the results to Paraview and then import also the CAD model to compare there.

With this kind of structures what I do also is model in Mecway in the same coordinate system as the CAD, and then compare the coordinates of several points directly to check positions and dimentions.

Also the mass and center of mass is a good/quick check.

JRP

I can't import an STL file to Mecway, because there is no possibility to do that.

Fatmac

I some times check my model by saving the mecway file as a .stl file (file then save as) and import that in my original CAD file and compare the two

JRP

Thanks Fatmac, but when I save my mecway file as a .stl file and then try to import it in Solidworks CAD, the file comes out empty. Maybe it will work with shell or solid elements, but it does not seem to work with beams and links.

disla

Gmsh has an option to mesh only the edges with nodes. It could provide a fast and light "node-mesh" just for reference. If Stp is too heavy to import all at once you could also try to import by parts (even separate files) before merging everything.




Mesh.Algorithm = 2;
Mesh.Algorithm3D = 1;
Mesh.MeshSizeMax = 10;
Mesh.MeshSizeMin = 5;
Mesh.ElementOrder=1;
Mesh 1;