EXPORT FROM MAX AS STEP FORMAT

[Renderbydesign]

I have been struggling with producing output that can be utilized by our engineers via Solidworks. Max is great for whipping up some quick animations and 3d rendering concepts. I have run into situations however that a model is needed for the Engineering and or customers. I found this in my searches this morning.

Answered on 28 Jan, 2017 04:53 PM

Yes you can, first, you have to export your model as ACIS .SAT fomat, Check the box (export mesh objects) if your model base is mesh, or (Export NURBS) if your model base is NURBS.

Download this software (it's free:  www.123dapp.com/design) 
Open your .SAT file and export it as SAT/STEP file, choose STEP from the drop down menu. 
And that's it..

This site does not call up.

Does someone out there have a script that will do this?

Thanks in advance.

[pokoy]

Only NURBS geometry can be exported as STEP. For polygonal meshes you'll need to confirm with the CAD designer which format their software can read, SAT or STL are often supported. With SAT, you need to specify that you want to export mesh geometry otherwise the file will be empty. Hope this helps.

[Renderbydesign]

Thanks for your reply @pokoy but I am at this point Already. I have exported as sat (took forever) and i keep getting request for step format.

I know that Inventor as well as Solidworks accept both sat and stp. Although Max is not capable of exporting to step I am wondering at this point if there is a conversion program or script out there that will.

Sat files are too large and not practical  so I am hoping step files will allow me to export smaller files.

[pokoy]

Actually, STEP will be similarly large since every polygon/triangle is
handled as a NURBS patch, and conversion will take some time, similar to
SAT.
The only way I know of is a small CAD app called MoI3D, which can import
a SAT and export STEP.

Looking at the Solidworks help it looks like it can import other formats
such as OBJ and STL, but I'm not sure if you need the ScanTo3D plug in
or not:
http://help.solidworks.com/2018/english/solidworks/sldworks/t_importing_mesh_file.htm

[pokoy · Accepted solution]

Some googling shows that with Solidworks 2017 and newer, you can import some mesh formats natively - STL and OBJ - which are both supported in SW and Max. That should work.

[Renderbydesign]

obj seems to be the ticket! its fast! I do not see a stl export option in max

Thanks @pokoy

[pokoy]

Sorry, STL is only available as an import format.

[brentscannell]

There is an STL format exporter built into 3ds Max, you just need to select it from the dropdown list.

Now, depending on what your engineers need, a big heavy mesh might not be practical or useful for anything other than reference geometry. It won't necessarily be any quicker, but you can convert it to a body object (converting mesh faces to a faceted brep) and then use the .sat export to get a solid model out of it that will play a little better in CAD applications.

[dbt]

Hi, I'll share my experience.

Yes, there is .stl built-in converter, but it's tricky to exploit.

First of all, initial model must be NURBS, Patch or Splines+Surface (in order to convert to NURBS later).

After you have ONLY NURBS object(s) in your scene (better to export them to a new scene with Save Selected command), move all objects to 0 layer, delete all other layers.

Then you'll have .stl export active in Export menu and it'll work fine:

[frederik.vollbrecht]

I did a screencast a while ago where i show my workflow doing this:

[aecvn1]

Can I ask what software you can use to record your screen, I want to go back to instructions like yours