The problem with transforming an STL file to a “real” CAD file is that the STL is only an approximation of the true shape. The software would have to have some intelligence to see that the designer intended to (say) have a curved profile revolved around an axis to make a complex shape on a lathe. A human can see this quickly, but software can’t (yet). So you need a human in the loop to do it correctly.
Yes, you can convert.STL files into editable files and save them as .STEP. But not automatically. Fusion 360 allows you to convert a triangle mesh (stl file) to native mesh and it can remove all the redundant points and do some curve-fitting and then you have an object that is a b-spline surface and is editable in a normal CAD system. I’ve done this for designs as complex as a working quadruped robot. It takes some work but you can actually turn STL files into geometric objects that can be edited and parameterized. Here is a part I made that started life in Blender, was saved as STL, Imported to Fusion turned into normal CAD and then greatly modified. Two of these assemblies in each robot are used to connect the legs to the body. You can see it in the on-line viewer linked below https://a360.co/3ra8Dyh BTW, Fusion 360 has just come out with a Beta release that runs native on Apple Silicon. The new Apple processors are astonishingly fast. The above part is designed to be printed but it is fun to let Fusion great g-code files for milling and see what it comes up with. > On Jul 4, 2023, at 5:01 AM, Gregg Eshelman via Emc-users > <emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net> wrote: > > Caligari trueSpace can import STL and it can save to a wide range of formats. > > However, it hasn't had any official support since Microsoft bought Caligari > to position trueSpace as a competitor to Google's Sketchup. (I call it Messup > because I've seen some of the worst geometry ever made by people using > Sketchup.) Google had Sketchup for people to use to populate Google Earth > with 3D models of buildings. Microsoft whipped up Virtual Earth... and nobody > cared. People weren't stepping up to voluntarily use the free version of > Sketchup to make 3D stuff for Google Earth either. > > Microsoft quickly swept trueSpace under the digital rug, left the site for it > unchanged for a while until they got around to deleting it. Lots of people > grabbed the free downloads and some patches and other things have been made. > There's a ton of tSx plugins available for free, including many formerly > commercial ones. Most tSx for version 6.x and some for 5.x will work but most > for older versions won't. > > One glitch that nobody has fixed yet is when importing some 3D file formats > it scales the mesh down to make the largest axis, X, Y, or Z, exactly 8 units > of whichever is the currently selected unit in the workspace. With STL I load > up the model in a slicer to get the proper XYZ sizes then scale up to match > in trueSpace then save a copy in its native COB format. > > I always save in COB (frequently! it appends an auto-incremented number to > the file names) and export to STL. Exports of the formats it supports are > fine. It's just importing it has the size issue with. Would have been so nice > if Microsoft hadn't killed it by buying the company. I've used every > trueSpace version since 2.2a so I'm used to its oddities it inherited by > originally being an Amiga program. > > If you want to give it a whirl there are a few versions of 7.x here > http://truespace3d.free.fr/index.php/truespace-7-6/ > I use 6.6 since the Model Side of 7.x is essentially version 6.6 and I never > could get into the new 7.x Workspace. It's so different from 2.x through 6.6. > Hmmm, I don't remember if Workspace side has the size issue with importing. > > On Tuesday, July 4, 2023 at 03:10:58 AM MDT, gene heskett > <ghesk...@shentel.net> wrote: > > On 7/4/23 02:01, andrew beck wrote: >> I run a CNC machine shop full time. >> >> We always want the step files. Or SOLIDWORKS files etc. >> >> And we make it own gcode from that. >> >> It would be a nightmare to run someone else's gcode lol. >> > I'll have to agree Andrew. Most of the stuff on thingiverse for 3d > printers is in .stl formats, cura can usually make something useful out > of them. but its maddening to see an .stl that needs fixed, and I've not > found anything that can convert an .stl back into something that can be > edited in openscad. So I wind up about 95% of the time, using the image > as a guide to compose something that looks like it well enough to work. > > > _______________________________________________ > Emc-users mailing list > Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
