Another STL fail...

OpenR2

I was so close. I had all the components for an assembly imported from Thing-i-verse. I wanted this to be my first publicly share document. I got to the last component....and failure.

For the part that failed...it imports fine into STL studio. I saved it back out as a binary STL (this was the workaround last time) however no luck on the import.

Grrrrrrrrr.

michael3424

I've seen some pretty messed up and badly designed STL files on Thingiverse.  So far as I can tell there is no curation there at all.

OpenR2

I created these files from CATIA solid model data for Thingiverse. 3600 folks have printed these at 3 parts each. So that's over 10000 prints.

 9 out of the 10 files imported correctly into OnShape. STL Workbench read in the "bad" file with no issues and reported 0 errors. I saved it out and tried to reimport it back into OnShape with no luck.

philip_thomas

Onshape is an awesome parametric b-rep modeller - had you considered modeling these simple parts natively?

Thingiverse is a great service for those people that want to browse libraries of printable things - they are not brep models as would be created by Onshape.

Have you looked at GrabCad - a curated service offering b-rep engineering data that can be manipulated by the awesome direct editing tools within Onshape?

STL import into Onshape was offered to allow for space allocation (reservation) while designing new parts. It was never intended to provide 'modeling' capabilities nor to function as a healing tool.

STL was developed to create a simple representation of a solid so that it could be sliced by the relatively low powered computers of the day.

Trying to read STL into Onshape is like trying to read an EPS file into Microsoft Word and expecting to be able to edit it.

Happy to answer any questions.

OpenR2

Philip,

I am importing these STL to use as space reservation for a gimbal I am designing. I am not looking to redesign the STL into OnShape parts. I only want to use them as space reservation. So my use case is exactly what OnShape advertises its STL functionality to be. Agree?

I do not need the mesh be of printable quality and you just 100% supported my point. Why is OnShape failing the importing of meshes by putting restrictions on its quality ... that it be off a post healed quality. I just want the STL triangles read in and shaded so I can use them for space reservation.

So again, my use case is exactly what you are advertising OnShapes STL functionality to be .... but you have put an constraint on the STL data that is actually detrimental to the use case you are saying is supported. We don't need the STL to be a closed body ... or of any set quality ... to use it for space reservation.

Your analogy to the EPS file and Microsoft word is NOT NOT NOT correct. I am not trying to edit the mesh. Or heal it. Or use it to reconstruct geometry. I am only trying to use it in the exact way that OnShape advertised its intended use.

So I do have questions and I hope you will be happy to answer them.

Do you agree that my use case of reading in the STL files to use the mesh solely as space reservation is the exact use case that OnShape created this released of STL functionality for?

Do you agree that for this functionality that any array of triangles, no matter what the quality, can be visualized and used for space reservation?

Do you agree that putting any restrictions on the quality of the triangles is actually outside of the advertised use case of space reservation?

Do you agree that OnShape just got a little ahead of themselves with the restriction that the mesh must be a valid body and should relax this requirement in the next software update so we can use the functionality as advertised?

BTW....

Lou got this to import for me a few hours ago.
So right now all my STL files have been uploaded to OnShape and I currently only have one failure.






 

philip_thomas

@OpenR2 - YES!!! You are using it exactly as we intended and I want to make sure that it works for you! I don't believe that the mesh needs to be closed, but I will check both with the developers and Lou. Sorry for the soapbox speech - these threads tend to be read by a lot of people and I wanted to be very clear on our intent (I was QA lead on this project). Let me do some checking and get back to you. I am happy to answer any questions. 
Thsnk you for choosing Onshape.