Importing files from Maya/Blender... (mesh)

luis_garcia

Hi,
I am working in a project that aesthetics and mechanical design is involved at the same time. Specifically I am working with some 3D scans that has been refined and corrected on Maya. From Maya this mesh has been exported to IGES files and then imported to Onshape. My surprise is that once imported it is recognised as a buch of surfaces and therefore can no be imported to any assembly.
My question is:
How can I import this mesh as part and then load the part in some assembly? or can be surfaces imported to assemblies in any way?

Thank you.

lougallo

@luis_garcia Currently we do not recognize mesh/tetrahedral models.  As it is currently in our beta, Onshape assemblies also do not import surfaces yet.  Many of these things are logged as improvements for future releases.  I'd be happy to mark you down down for mesh import but I think what you might also be after are tools to trim and knit them into solids as well.  Let me know what workflows you typically would go though to merge your ID and ME ideas. 

lougallo

@luis_garcia Currently we do not recognize mesh/tetrahedral models.  As it is currently in our beta, Onshape assemblies also do not import surfaces yet.  Many of these things are logged as improvements for future releases.  I'd be happy to mark you down down for mesh import but I think what you might also be after are tools to trim and knit them into solids as well.  Let me know what workflows you typically would go though to merge your ID and ME ideas. 

andrew_troup

Lou
Please add me to "bring surfaces into assemblies along with solids imported from other MCAD formats"

Although I could probably equally well live with "bring assemblies (solids and surfaces) into Onshape Part Studios" - and perhaps this might actually be more useful.

I say this because it is trivially easy to carry on and make a Part Studio into an assembly, but there is no reverse capability (and I'm thinking there won't be for a while?)

And it strikes me that an Onshape Part Studio is more akin to a dumb (imported) assembly than an Onshape assembly is: each of the former items is a collection of unmated parts which are nevertheless in a correct (or, at least, useful) arrangement.

luis_garcia

Thank you Lou for your answer.
I will be happy if "bring surfaces into assembly" or something similar is implemented. The reason for that is that I have to check geometry with some 3D scans and if I can import that surfaces into an assembly, I could easily check geometry, proportions and aesthetics in combination with the mechanical part.

aaron_2

luis_garcia said:

Hi,
I am working in a project that aesthetics and mechanical design is involved at the same time. Specifically I am working with some 3D scans that has been refined and corrected on Maya. From Maya this mesh has been exported to IGES files and then imported to Onshape. My surprise is that once imported it is recognised as a buch of surfaces and therefore can no be imported to any assembly.
My question is:
How can I import this mesh as part and then load the part in some assembly? or can be surfaces imported to assemblies in any way?

Thank you.

I found a work around for this using other programs like Freecad, Import your stl from Maya/Blender. turn it into a Part in Freecad, then export it as a STEP file and into Onshape. So far I have been able to find a work around for just about everything I have needed to do, but in the end it is always to enable me to work with my designs in Onshape. At first I used this so that I could use words in my Onshape designs and then I was asked if I could modify an stl file, so I tried that and it worked too.  It was difficult to figure out but using youtube for a crash course on Freecad, I was able to get it done in a reasonable amount of time.

luis_garcia

Hi Aaron,
Thank you for your reply.
I have tried the FreeCad tool "turn into a solid" but when the mesh is a 3d scan with high mesh resolution it becomes a pain, it takes ages to convert to a solid and sometimes you have to repair the mesh to be able to convert it to a solid.
I was able to create a low poly mesh of the thing that I wanted to import, but when I imported the solid then it was recognized on onshape as surfaces.
However, yesterday I reimported a closed NURBS mesh into Onshape and it was recognized as a part, so I suspect that if the mesh is close and with no errors or all the normals to the same direction then Onshape recognizes that as a single close surface and therefore as a part.

Not sure if the problem is the import parameters or the mesh creation.
 

aaron_2

My guess would be mesh creation, you should be able to check that before exporting from blender or maya.  I have read a lot about that the cheap of free programs have a lot of problems with this, and also experienced it with on letter when importing to Onshape, I was able to fix it by doing a new extrude off the surface of the letter and then deleting the original. I doubt that work work in your situation though, but it might in some cases by extruding and then boolean all together.