Solid Edge Stl Export Settings

[Alyssa Dipiero]

Iuse MoI, which is a great program if you also want to go into the original model and make some edits before exporting to SKP. It gives you lots of options for the export, this one is just using the default settings.

I'm having a hard time getting my prints to be the correct dimensions. I model using Solid Edge and export as .STL. However, when i drop the stl file into repetier, it's tiny. I can always scale it up to about the size i want, but I don't know the dimensions that it starts out, so i cannot get a scale factor to bring it to the exact dimensions I want. This happens for everything I create using Solid Edge. I don't have any other CAD software to try, so I am unsure if this is specific to Solid Edge or if it's something else entirely, but every STL that i load from other sources shows up in repetier the correct size the first time.

Most modelling, particularly in the 3D world, is done in metric (it divides by 10, and has far less 0's for the same given accuracy). Both of you I'm guessing are displaying/viewing in CAD in Inches or part there of, and then exporting it? The STL export will be invariably in Metric.

Scale up your object in Slic3r by 25.4 , this will convert mm's back to inches.

If you experience the reverse (happens occasionally, particularly importing STLs into CAD), then scale down .0393 .

To fix - design in mm's, or, make sure your STL export is in the same units you are designing in. But even then, you'll find stuff will still try to make sense of it using metric... so YMMV anyway....

I have had successful prints when I have sliced my STL-files with MakerWare (MakerBot's software).

But you will have to do some converting of the GCODE before it will work with ReptierHost, or you can try my beta-silverlight tool for doing the GCODE-conversion:

I actually work for Siemens PLM What you need to do when you do a "save as" is click the option button and set the part to millimeters. I also set tollerance to .1 mm and output to Ascii. STL does not have units and Repetier Host expects mm.

In Solidworks, you can design in Inches and then in the Save as - STL dialog box, there is an Options tab where you can specify the output to be in mm. Works like a charm. Mark's reply above seems to indicate the same option in Solidedge. The key here is you can continue to design in inches if you desire and output the STL only to mm...your CAD model units will remain in inches.

I'm assuming that the conversion works only one way, so re-opening it in solid edge (since I set the default to inches) scales the mm up w/o discretion... or am I sending files off that are 25.4 times larger off than they should be for printing? I don't need an 8 foot x 2 foot part to be printed (like they could print it anyway). 1100lbs is a little much for most printers.

If you save it as mm, you may have to have mm as your default units when you read it back in (unless there is an option to change it) I've never really had a reason to read STL files into Solid Edge - you can do much with them given their poor precision.

The wizard takes you through 7-8 pages which allows fine tuning the resulting DWG file. Most of the settings are obvious and if you know the DWG format well, most settings need no explanation. The help file can be referred for a brief note on each setting.

The first and the last page of the wizard allows to store the settings in a SEACAD.ini file which can be reused to produce DWG files with similar features. These are called initialization files and are a standard way in several Windows based programs which needs to store user settings or preferences.

The SEACAD.ini is stored in the Program folder of Solid Edge and is a simple ascii or text file that can be opened in Notepad and subsequently edited. Though this is not a good way of changing settings, it is strongly recommended to first copy the ini file to a backup location.

This exports Solid Edge multiline text boxes as multiline or single line text. The default is 1, which exports the text boxes as multiline text boxes. You can set the value to 0 to export the text boxes as single line text boxes.

Another setting is regarding layer names like Maximum Number Layer Name Chars. This is applicable to some old versions of AutoCAD which had a limit of 16 chars for layer names and would be useful just in case you find saving to such older versions. Interesting stuff which would remind many of the dark ages when file names too followed the 8 character limit and a 3 char limit for extensions.

Then there are some settings that are neither listed in the wizard nor in the ini file but can be added. One such example is Export Groups As Entities=1. When you add this line to the .ini file, Solid Edge groups are exported as simple elements in AutoCAD, instead of blocks. This parameter will also override the parameter Export Drawing View To Block=1 whose value is set from second page of the wizard as below:

Smart Export for 3MF, USD, and glTF formats includes baking of materials and textures. With this, additional export options are provided and the export includes a single texture file (png) that combines the following material properties:

Exporting to FPX will output a file along with a folder containing any color/diffuse textures used in the scene. Meanwhile the FBX exporter will always convert the texture mapping to UV maps, using the default position, so any settings or transformations of the texture (scale/move/rotate) may be discarded.

The exported FBX also includes cameras.

The 3D Manufacturing Format (3MF) is developed by the 3MF Consortium and used for 3D printing. 3MF format allows designers to send full-fidelity 3D textured model and color information to supported apps, services, and printers. See Table 1 above for the supported output features.

USDz does not support double sided geometry and Normals flipped in the opposite direction will be shown as artifacts. To avoid this, you can use the Flip Normals Tool to make sure your Normals are all aligned.

The TL;DR: Exporting CAD geometry with the right STL resolution will result in 3D printed parts with the highest dimensional accuracy and surface finish, without slowing down the slicing process.

If the resulting file size is greater than 20 MB, we strongly recommend reducing the file size by increasing the values of the chordal and angular tolerance until the STL file size has been reduced to less than 20 MB, as the large file size can significantly slow down the computations involved in preparing the STL for 3D printing. If your model still contains excessive flat spots at these settings, you can try decreasing the values of the chordal and angular tolerance, with the strong recommendation of continuing to keep the file size below 20 MB.

In an ASCII (text-based) STL file, each triangle is represented in the following format, where the normal vector n is represented by (ni

nj nk) and each vertex v has three dimensional coordinates (vx vy vz):

However, an STL file is simply a list of coordinates and vectors and there is no requirement in the STL file specification for such a manifold condition. STL files, especially ones created directly from 3D scanners, can often contain non-manifold geometry or incomplete surfaces that may be difficult or impossible to 3D print correctly, and may cause errors during slicing.

Many engineering parts have at least some curved surfaces however, whether those are holes, fillets, radiuses, revolves or more complex curves and organic geometries. These curved (non-planar) features and surfaces will be replicated by a mesh of triangles and so they can only be approximated by an STL file with varying levels of precision, based on the STL export settings.

The most common issue our users run into are STL files that are too coarse, and were generated without sufficient resolution. The most prominent indicator of this is flat spots and faceted regions of parts that were designed with smooth curves, like in the following image of a nozzle.

In general most modern CAD software offers users the ability to control at least two export parameters: one with linear dimensions called the chordal tolerance (or chordal deviation), and one with angular dimensions called the angular tolerance (or angular deviation). The resulting STL must meet all the conditions specified by your chosen export settings. Depending on the geometry of a specific feature of your 3D model, one of these settings will typically be more restrictive (aka requiring a higher-resolution mesh) than the other and can be considered the dominant or limiting parameter over that feature. The limiting parameter will typically vary across the geometry of a part in response to different features. We will explore these parameters and how they impact STL generation first, then breakdown how to configure these settings in a variety of major CAD software packages.

The chordal tolerance (or chordal deviation) is a setting that controls the global dimensional accuracy of the STL when compared with the as-designed 3D model. Chordal tolerance is usually specified as the maximum normal (perpendicular) linear deviation allowed from the surface of the as-designed 3D model and the nearest triangular face of the resulting STL, as seen in the following image.

You can think of the chordal tolerance as controlling the maximum error allowed between the generated STL and the as-designed model, across the entire geometry of the part. So as the STL export function in your CAD software is building a triangular mesh around your 3D model geometry, it cannot create triangles whose maximum distance from the 3D model would exceed the chordal tolerance you specify. Assuming that the chordal tolerance is the limiting factor in STL resolution, a smaller chordal tolerance value will result in a higher resolution STL, with more triangles and a larger file size.

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