topic Re: Covert STL mesh to Solid Body in Fusion Design, Validate & Document Forum

Covert STL mesh to Solid Body

anisamariam180 — Wed, 26 Apr 2023 18:54:03 GMT

Hi all: I'm having a problem converting an STL mesh to solid body (no mesh). The STL mesh is attached here which was generated in Tinkercad. In Fusion360, when I right click on the body to see properties of the mesh body, I see no issues (see attached property list). I used the following convert process in Fusion360 with no luck:

1) Generate Face Groups, select "accurate".

2) Modify, convert mesh. I select "parametric", and "prismatic".

For Generate Face Groups, I have tried boundary tolerance of 0.001 mm and 0.1 mm. Both result in failure.

I get warning: "convert mesh", and "compute failed". The resulting image of part has missing sections (see image).

Hoping the fix is something simple. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Betreff: Covert STL mesh to Solid Body

wersy — Wed, 26 Apr 2023 19:24:30 GMT

I got no warning.

Re: Covert STL mesh to Solid Body

Joshua.Aigen — Wed, 26 Apr 2023 19:42:54 GMT

@anisamariam180, you should be able to send your Tinkercad files directly to Fusion 360. I believe there is a simple function within Tinkercad to do this, like send. Both products are made by Autodesk and some folks like the ability to start in Tinkercad and then add complexity in F360.

Re: Covert STL mesh to Solid Body

TrippyLighting — Wed, 26 Apr 2023 19:51:31 GMT

Tinkercad for the most part is not a BRep solid modeler but uses meshes under the hood for most of the geometry it creates.

Betreff: Covert STL mesh to Solid Body

anisamariam180 — Thu, 27 Apr 2023 00:16:29 GMT

Thanks @wersy . I see the file you sent still has mesh. I'm trying to create a solid body without any mesh. I thought I had the right process for this, but it fails. Were you able to convert it to a solid body without mesh, as shown in this video? youtu.be/VZc2rgHLMkc

Appreciate any help!

Re: Covert STL mesh to Solid Body

anisamariam180 — Wed, 26 Apr 2023 22:51:39 GMT

This video (see link) shows the how an STL mesh file is converted to solid body without mesh. But the process fails for me, even though my part seems to have the proper requirements / properties. Any ideas?

https://youtu.be/VZc2rgHLMkc

Re: Covert STL mesh to Solid Body

TrippyLighting — Wed, 26 Apr 2023 23:01:18 GMT

What do you want to do with the object once the mesh is converted into a solid?

Re: Covert STL mesh to Solid Body

anisamariam180 — Thu, 27 Apr 2023 00:09:43 GMT

@TrippyLighting, having it in solid body format without mesh makes some edits easier. Also the format is also used if the part needs sent out for injection mold.

Re: Covert STL mesh to Solid Body

TrippyLighting — Thu, 27 Apr 2023 00:26:28 GMT

@anisamariam180 wrote:

@TrippyLighting, having it in solid body format without mesh makes some edits easier. Also the format is also used if the part needs sent out for injection mold.

Yes, but the highly faceted nature of such a solid body often leads to modeling problems (near tangency and near coincidence issues) .

The faceted nature will also create problems in making an injection mold.

I would re-design this object with the native tools in Fusion 360. Its a bit more work, but yields absolutely superior results.

Re: Covert STL mesh to Solid Body

anisamariam180 — Thu, 27 Apr 2023 02:06:22 GMT

thanks @TrippyLighting. It will take me a while to become proficient in designing using Fusion360. I was just hoping for an easy way to simply convert STL mesh to non-mesh solid body, with same dimensions & accuracy.

Re: Covert STL mesh to Solid Body

TheCADWhisperer — Thu, 27 Apr 2023 10:33:13 GMT

@anisamariam180 wrote:
….with same dimensions & accuracy.

There isn’t any accuracy in stl. Any conversion of planar triangular facets into curved faces involves interpolation.

Re: Covert STL mesh to Solid Body

HughesTooling — Thu, 27 Apr 2023 12:23:41 GMT

@TrippyLighting wrote:

Tinkercad for the most part is not a BRep solid modeler but uses meshes under the hood for most of the geometry it creates.

If the model in TinkerCAD is created using basic shapes it should transfer and create a BRep in Fusion.

@anisamariam180 See this post for more info.