Best Practices for Importing 3D Data into SolidWorks by Brian Zias
July 7, 2009
An excellent entry “…posted by Mechanical Engineer on Mon, Jun 15, 2009″ on the Alignex Mechanical Division Technical Blog
We have spent 40 minutes wondering in the labyrinths of the Solidworks web sites, where all paths to support lead to dead-ends of restricted access. Still, we were unable to find that place where we could read what is the best format to be imported to Solidworks software. Nor were we able to learn what formats Solidworks is able to import. The search of the site by keywords “import formats”, “formats” and similar would bring endless entries of supplementary software by partners but nothing from the product description or knowledge base. Our verdict: Solidworks gives a bad example of accessibility for a website and a bad example of managing access to information.
We turned to Google and from the first try our search brought an excellent and very recent article on the subject with a title with almost exactly wording as our search keywords: “best practices for importing to into solidworks”.
The article is so good and necessary for our work, that we copy the entire text here, not to loose anything.
Also, the Alignex Mechanical Division Technical Blog is in itself definitely a case of best practice in managing of a corporate blog of an engineering company. We put it on our “learn from the best practices” list.
Even with One Million SolidWorks licenses out there (Learn more here), many users find themselves dealing with imported data from time to time. This data usually comes to the designer in the format of IGES, STEP, Parasolid, or possibly native Pro/E, Inventor, and UG files. Fortunately, SolidWorks can import all of these data types, along with many others. Here are four tips for working with imported 3D data:
1. Get the right format
Is there a single-best format in which a user should request 3D CAD data? Yes, SolidWorks format of course! Seriously though, there are myriad formats out there. Some types are neutral, agreed-upon standards while some are proprietary and require licensing from a commercial entity. The best format depends on where the data is coming from.
Parasolid (.x_t or .x_b) is my usual recommendation, since SolidWorks is based on that kernel. Other software also licenses that technology, e.g. Unigraphics, SolidEdge, and MicroStation. Any software users with the ability to export parasolid should provide that format for import into SolidWorks. IGES and STEP files, both neutral formats, would be my second and third choices for data, respectively.
2. Say ‘Yes’ to Import Diagnostics
Any time SolidWorks opens a non-native file type, the software first creates a SolidWorks document. SolidWorks uses the ‘Default Templates’ system setting to determine which template to choose (or whether to prompt the user). The second thing to happen is the Import Diagnostics command is started:
Make it a habit to always answer ‘Yes’ to this question. It will analyze the geometric data, and then allow for automated repair if issues are detected. Most of the time, it will find a few faulty faces or surface gaps, and most of the time these entities are repaired with one click. On some poor-quality imported data, the user will have to clean up via surfacing anything that is left behind. Pay attention to whether the data is solid or surface bodies, or possibly a mix. To become a solid, a surface must usually be patched until it is water-tight.
Make it a habit to always answer ‘Yes’ to this question. It will analyze the geometric data, and then allow for automated repair if issues are detected. Most of the time, it will find a few faulty faces or surface gaps, and most of the time these entities are repaired with one click. On some poor-quality imported data, the user will have to clean up via surfacing anything that is left behind. Pay attention to whether the data is solid or surface bodies, or possibly a mix. To become a solid, a surface must usually be patched until it is water-tight.
3. Use FeatureWorks
Imported files contain only geometric data, not the history of how it was made. FeatureWorks is a tool that allows imported solids to be transformed into an intelligent feature tree. It reverses a “dumb” imported part with only one feature (the imported body) into a full feature history. An example would be this IGES file with no history after being opened:
FeatureWorks has a few different recognition modes. Fore simple geometries, the automatic mode is pretty much turnkey. Alternatively, a user can proceed through manual interaction with the module to point out geometry that needs to be a certain feature type. After running the automatic recognition, 15 seconds later we see a fully-defined, parametric, SolidWorks part.
A complete feature history is invaluable when it comes time for complex design changes or creating a detailed drawing (it will also fully define the absorbed sketches). It is not always necessary to reverse a part that far. One tip is to use FeatureWorks on a feature-by-feature basis. With the add-in enabled, users can right-click on a feature in the graphics area (e.g. a fillet face, or fastener hole) and ‘Edit Feature’ which will trigger background recognition of that specific geometry. This makes opening legacy data and making a few tweaks a painless process.
4. Get comfortable with Surfaces
All solids are really just surfaces in disguise. More precisely, solids are water-tight sets of surfaces that are ‘filled’ up with volume. At the surface level, you can manipulate data even without having a part history. An example is the Delete Face command. Try the option ‘delete and patch’ next time there’s some feature (fillet, small hole) that you need to remove, or erase and re-create. Also tools such as Move Face and Replace Face come in handy to resize or manipulate imported geometry. As a final note: When you are stuck with a poor-quality imported surface and start to question how it can be turned into a solid, surfaces are the answer.
My hope is that these few tips help you transitioning legacy data from another CAD tool to SolidWorks easier and/or improve working with others who do not have the benefit of modeling in SolidWorks. If you continue to have issues, don’t hesitate contacting your SolidWorks VAR Service Center. That’s one of the many great reasons you pay for your Subscription renewal.
Tags: SolidWorks, FeatureWorks, Import 3D Data
Alternative Dispute Resolution
May 30, 2009
Good on-line resources on Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) on the site of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL). Good job.
Positive and negative aspects of using Arbitration as a way to resolve contractual disputes retained our attention.
In the video lecture by Ms. Catherine Kessedjian, an law professor in Paris and New York, an arbitrator and an experienced law professional, there are a lot of instructive points.
Some are quite counter intuitive. Our selection for the negative aspects:
- The arbitral procedure is NOT shorter than in a national court.
- The arbitral procedure is A LOT MORE EXPENSIVE than a national court. Notably, because in the national procedure the parties do not pay the judge. Also, the workload and the cost of the legal advisers is much higher since the Arbitrator “knows nothing”, unlike a national judge.
- A mistake with the choice of the arbitrator is possible and can be fatal: the appointed arbitrator may not understand the subject. Especially so, in the ad hoc arbitration.
- An arbitration court can not impose to the 3rd parties: for instance, can not order to
freeze a bank account. A national court can.
Guidelines on international contracts. UNICTRAL versus ICC.
May 29, 2009
United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) makes available a good body of knowledge on international trade and on dispute resolution on its web sites.
Particularly useful and informative is The Digest of Case Law on the United Nations Convention on the International Sale of Goods. However, the framework provided by the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG) is not perfectly suitable for technology, equipment and plant supply contracts.
The framework provided by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) addresses the problematic of technology, equipment and plant supply better.
The web sites of ICC have a good feature that we particularly liked. ICC makes available contributions of law professionals for different events and seminars. A good example is the 10 pages Notes by Michelangelo Cicogna from Studio Legale De Berti Jacchia Franchini Forlani for the PIDA Seminar in Paris in February 2009.
A citation:
Many professionals who start drafting a contract have their first problems with the blank
page (the so called “blank page syndrome”3). If the following pages could provide at least
some help in overcoming this kind of problem, I would consider it a success.
Probably the perfect formula for drafting an international contract does not exist. However,
the guiding principle when starting to draft a contract should be to identify the essence of
the substantive elements of the commercial relationship, the basic and essential terms of the
contractual provisions (that is to say creating the skeleton of the contract) and, at a second
stage, complete the contract with the necessary accessory provisions. Always keeping in mind
that, not rarely, one of the best virtues of a good contract is its simplicity.
Sapphire. Material, Manufacturing, Applications - a long awaited book is finally available.
May 20, 2009
A long delayed book on sapphire by Elena Dobrovinskaya and al. is finally available at Springer.
Elena Dobrovinskaya is the Chief Scientist at Rubicon Technology, a leading US sapphire manufacturer. Rubicon Technology also uses a variation of Kyropoulos growing method for sapphire.
The book has a lot of valuable information and is a “must have” reference on the subject.
LED makers can improve productivity with laser scribers as they move to 4″ and larger wafers
May 13, 2009
High volume LED makers reach for the lasers, from compoundsemiconductor.net
Diamond is not the best friend of manufacturers seeking to upgrade LED production from 2-inch to 4-inch diameter wafers, according to Electro Scientific Industries.
…laser scribing systems are significantly more economical than diamond tools for larger diameters.
…increased areas call for a proportionate increase in the number of – and therefore expenditure on – diamond scribers.
…“At the same time, you miss the opportunity of being very perfectly aligned in your scribes, and therefore you lose area that you could have devices on,”
… Laser scribing offers more precise alignment, avoiding this waste, the company claims.
SemiLEDs: the company and its technology.
May 12, 2009
From the company’s web site:
“SemiLEDs is the only manufacturer of vertical LEDs on a metal alloy substrate; the MvPLEDTM. These devices are fabricated using SemiLEDs’ proprietary and patented technologies. MvPLEDTM is the next generation high power LEDs for solid state lighting applications.
SemiLEDs’ chip has been optimally designed, solving common problems of many conventional LEDs, such as thermal management and current spreading. With our breakthrough technology and innovation, our LED chips deliver better performance, capable of more than 100 lm/W at 350mA driving current. “
SemiLEDs’ vertical LEDs comprise a mirror directly deposited on metal alloy substrate, a 0.2 µm thick p-GaN/p-AlGaN layer, an InGaN/GaN multiple quantum well active region and a 4 µm thick n-GaN layer. Image and description source: compoundsemiconductor.net
“Utilizing Copper alloy substrate, SemiLEDs has successfully developed and commercialized MvPLEDTM technology (Metal vertical Photon Light Emitting Diode). With metal substrate and unique device structure, SemiLEDs’ MvPLEDTM have better electrical and thermal conductivity; increasing brightness, efficiency, and better heat transfer. SemiLEDs’ MvPLEDTM are suitable for lighting applications including display, signage, communication, automotive, and general lighting.”
“SemiLEDs is a U.S. corporation backed by multi-billion-dollar companies. The company is headquartered in Boise, Idaho with operations in Hsinchu, Taiwan.”
The price of 6″ sapphire wafers has to drop down.
Compound semiconductor published an article that continues the thread started in our earlier entries. In this article, we found answers to some of our questions.
”
May 5, 2009
…despite the joint effort’s promising results and significant yield benefits, SemiLEDs does not currently have any plans to upgrade its Taiwan production lines to the larger format.
“We are in an R&D phase and will not plan for production until we can secure low-cost 6-inch sapphire,” said Chuong Tran, president and chief operating officer of SemiLEDs.”
Another interesting point mentioned by Chuong Tran is the possibility of sapphire substrate recycling.
” As SemiLEDs’ production process involves removing the sapphire layer and replacing it with a copper substrate, Tran suggests that his company could recycle substrates to help solve this issue.”
Dr. Christian Geng, General Manager Aixtron China, commented on use of 6″ sapphire substrates
A press release by Aixtron (see our previous post), inspired a comment on our part and triggered an emails exchange with Dr. Christian Geng, General Manager Greater China of AIXTRON.
An extract of our email:
…In your recent comment (see extract and reference below), you noted that 6″ substrate should become competitive.
As an equipment manufacturer, we work on reducing the cost of sapphire substrates.
In this regard, we have some comments:You mentioned that a 1000um thick 6″ substrate was used in your trails.
To obtain 1000um thick wafer, you usually loose 500um to cutting, grinding and other operations……2″ wafers are thinner. … Thus, while providing the same surface as nine(9) 2″ wafers, a 6″ wafer will require significantly more sapphire. If everything else is equal, no matter what is the price of sapphire, the surface provided by 6″ wafers will always be more expensive than the equivalent on 9×2″…
In his answer, Dr. Christian Geng, gave some estimation on what would be the yield improvement required to compensate for higher cost of the surface provided by 6″ wafers.
The exact yield improvement will depend on specification, the edge exclusion area is significantly small for 1 6″ in comparison to 9×2″, and also a better reactor utilization can increase the output spectacularly.
After epi, the chip process may also allow much higher throughput.
Dr. Geng also noted that cutting thinner 6″ wafers is definitely a way to improve 6″ competitiveness, while strain and bowing must be managed accordingly…
We are greatly thankful to Dr. Geng for his comments.
A more detailed description of issues raised can be obtained by email.
Competitive price of 6″ sapphire substrates
AIXTRON and Semileds report first success with UHB blue LEDs on 6-inch sapphire wafers
Aachen/Germany, April 30, 2009 – A collaboration between AIXTRON and Semileds has resulted in the successful fabrication of GaN-based blue LED chips on 6-inch sapphire wafers. Not only were optical results encouraging but also the process is sufficiently close to production compatibility that the company should soon be able to reap the rewards from larger wafers.
…Specifically, the LED structure was deposited on a 1000 µm thick 6-inch sapphire substrate using an AIX 2800G4 HT MOCVD reactor in the 6×6-inch configuration.
Dr. Chuong Tran, President and COO of Semileds, comments on the results: “Brightness and efficiency are encouraging even though we are only a small step away from our existing and mature 4-inch sapphire process…”
(!)
“One of the contributing factors to yield enhancement is the significantly reduced edge area compared to the area equivalent of nine 2-inch wafers.”
Our question:
- What is the relative yield enhancement between 2″ and 6″ wafers?
Dr. Christian Geng, General Manager Greater China of AIXTRON adds: “The process obviously works from A to Z. I expect that once the price of a 6-inch substrate becomes competitive many of our customers will convert their AIX 2800G4 HT systems from 42×2-inch to 6×6-inch configuration since it merely requires the exchange of the so-called Satellite Disks.”
Another question:
- What will be a competitive price for 6″ wafer?
Source: Axitron, an equipment manufacturer with strong routs in Germany.
Perfect image quality with laser projectors in mobile phones: Osram lauches its blue laser diod
An optimized TO38 package makes the blue laser diode from Osram Opto Semiconductors the smallest in its class. This takes the world one step closer to a vision of tiny projectors that can be integrated into mobile devices such as cell phones and digital cameras.
Lasers represent the next milestone in the development of mobile devices and have a promising future in terms of integrating projection modules. They will be appreciated by end customers for their extremely low power requirements and compact dimensions. They also offer exceptionally vibrant colors and high contrast, and they always produce sharp images irrespective of the distance over which the images are projected.
Source: imicronews.com
Read the full article at the following link.