What is the best way to export a wireframe 3D view in SolidWorks into Xara?

Hello

What is the best vector format for exporting a 3D wireframe view of an object in SolidWorks2020 into Xara Designer Pro?

With thanks

J

PS I've tried of few thinks but SolidWorks keeps crashing.

Try PDF

What are you trying to accomplish?

svg?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by gwpriester

What are you trying to accomplish?

---

My product designers have created a 3D design of my product in SolidWorks. My patent attorney needs some line drawings of 3D views of my product based on the SolidWorks designs, for use in my patent application.

I now have a copy of SolidWorks v2020. As you may know SolidWorks is extremely expensive but it seems to be the industry norm for manufacturing industry. I have a 4K screen and I was hoping to be able to take some screenshots for my patent application.

However despite having a reasonably good graphics card (NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3GB) I can't get SolidWorks to anti-alias to screen.

So I was hoping to export a 3D view of my product in vector format so that I can create exactly what I want from Xara.

J


PS Here is a list of ways in which you can export from SolidWorks v2020:
Attachment 127097

Attempting to export as Adobe Illustrator crashes my computer every time. :^[

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by shiphen

However despite having a reasonably good graphics card (NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3GB) I can't get SolidWorks to anti-alias to screen.

---

i guess you will have read this:

http://help.solidworks.com/2018/engl...es_display.htm

from which:

Quote:

---

Full scene anti-aliasing Available if your video card supports full scene anti-aliasing and has passed a stability test. You must set the graphics card control panel settings for anti-aliasing so that the application has control. Applies anti-aliasing to the entire graphics area for parts, assemblies, and drawings.

Close all SOLIDWORKS documents before you turn on or off full scene anti-aliasing. Restart the SOLIDWORKS software for full scene anti-aliasing to take effect.

---

also I understand all open parts, assemblies, etc must be closed for full screen anti-aliasing to be available in the program - ie if you open them full screen anti-aliasing is disabled....?


you cannot import a 3D view into xara, it will end up 2D, so you will need to use several different views as I guess you appreciate - I'd try PDF first on the assumption that will be vector... but I don't have any experience of the program to confirm

Holy Cow - I just discovered how expensive Solidworks is!

Are you making parts for the Space Program Shiphen?

Wow, wow, wow!

yep - the cost of Toon Boom Harmony Premium, plus cintiq pro 24, plus cintiq pro stand, plus a bit more, for the standard edition of solidworks... still at least there's a trial....

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by handrawn

i guess you will have read this:

http://help.solidworks.com/2018/engl...es_display.htm

from which:



also I understand all open parts, assemblies, etc must be closed for full screen anti-aliasing to be available in the program - ie if you open them full screen anti-aliasing is disabled....?


you cannot import a 3D view into xara, it will end up 2D, so you will need to use several different views as I guess you appreciate - I'd try PDF first on the assumption that will be vector... but I don't have any experience of the program to confirm

---

1. Yes I have tried closing everything rebooting the PC but nothing seems to get the "Full scene anti-aliasing" button to un-grey itself.

2. I am aware of course aware that XDP only works in 2D, but I am wanting some 3D _views_ of models from particular angles, in 2D data, not actual 3D data.

I have a long history of not getting on very well with adobe's PDF format, but at first blush it does seem to work and if there is nothing better I'll with that.



PS What's so weird is just how poor a lot of CAD packages seem to be at drawing their lines using anti-aliasing. SolidWorks is market leader but in 3D you need a £500 graphics card to get antialiasing and even then I am told that their 2D drawing modules still can't anti-alias to screen. Hopeless.

I am starting a company so I am on their Entrepreneurial Program.
What I will do after my ultra-low cost initial year remains to seen....

J

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Egg Bramhill

svg?

---

No such option.

good luck with the EP :-bd

ok so this may be some help: https://forum.solidworks.com/thread/227344

but if you havnt already, checking with the company if your graphics cards should work would be my next step

if you are paying what the program costs then 500 for a graphics card may not be that much pro rata - or look at it the other way round - if you did not need the card, the program would cost a lot more....

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by handrawn

good luck with the EP :-bd

ok so this may be some help: https://forum.solidworks.com/thread/227344

but if you havnt already, checking with the company if your graphics cards should work would be my next step

if you are paying what the program costs then 500 for a graphics card may not be that much pro rata - or look at it the other way round - if you did not need the card, the program would cost a lot more....

---

Yes, unfortunately my graphics card (NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3GB) isn't supported.

If you can convince SolidWorks that you are a genuine startup the cost for SWX for 1 year is zero.

It looks like a half-decent card (e.g. a NVIDIA Quadro RTX 4000) will cost me about £800 or £900. I simply can't afford that sort of money I am now inventigating getting a "refurb" one
e.g. This one from ByteStock.com is just £720.00 (inc VAT) +11 for delivery...
https://www.bytestock.com/nvidia-qua...-0500-210.html

J

I have to say that a new card will always be worth the extra, I would never buy such a thing 'refurb' - but that said I appreciate the financial constraint, and it is not as if you have time to save-up if you are limited to a year; bummer

horse has bolted I know, but I learnt very early on in animation that you need to put together a workstation [computer] that will cope with what you need to do, and that you need to look at it holistically from the off - I build myself in order to make sure they are capable which an off the shelf mainstream computer would not be designed for - that said I could buy a ready made workstation, but it would mean spending megabucks and I am not convinced I would need all that power

This may be too simple (like me :D), but if Solidworks can export a video as, say, a 1920x1080 mp4 or some other friendly format it will be anti-aliased in the process. It would then be a simple task to take a few screen grabs from the video which could then be easily manipulated in Xara.

I guess you simply opened the assembly (.sldasm) and then directly tried to export, am I right?

In that case, you have to create a drawing first. I don't have Solidworks available right know, but I should be more or less like this:

1: Go to File/Create drawing from assembly (or something like that)
2: Add all the views you need
- Go back to your assembly file and move/rotate your view how you like it
- Swich to the drawing and insert new view (There should be an options which says something like "current view"
- Repeat these steps until you have all the desired views
3. Export the drawing (I guess .ai or .eps should work quiet well)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by shiphen

Yes, unfortunately my graphics card (NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3GB) isn't supported.

If you can convince SolidWorks that you are a genuine startup the cost for SWX for 1 year is zero.

It looks like a half-decent card (e.g. a NVIDIA Quadro RTX 4000) will cost me about £800 or £900. I simply can't afford that sort of money I am now inventigating getting a "refurb" one
e.g. This one from ByteStock.com is just £720.00 (inc VAT) +11 for delivery...
https://www.bytestock.com/nvidia-qua...-0500-210.html

J

---

I'm quite shocked at the amount of money required for solidworks - as in licence costs and hardware.

What is it specifically that you need from this software compared to far cheaper, very capable alternatives shiphen?

Paul

[ the last time I used high-end CAD software was way back in the day. The system used either hardwired pens or track-balls. I used to program the system to create integrated circuit designs using Fortran, then later systems used C.

These days most people I know are using onShape, but there are so many other solutions way less expensive than solidworks.

I have a license for Moi3D but haven't got to grips with it yet, and I know of furniture makers doing their original designs using Lightwave3D before passing it on to CAD based systems. ]

Shipen, I just wanted to be clear that my curiosity about your use of solidworks is simply to understand what it is that drew you to it and to wonder if you could save yourself a lot of money by using an alternative.

I have no gripe with solidworks, or your choice to use it. I wish you well in your venture (whatever it is).

Paul

Hi Shiphen,


You could ask for them an export in STEP or IGES, download the MOI3D demo, open the exported file and export to PDF.

Marc

I last used used Solidworks about 20 years ago when I was still studying but there are videos on Youtube about the subject. For example this was the first video that came up with a search, and seems to demonstrate pretty well what you are trying to accomplish: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0M0jZN1GfTU

Here's the background.

I am developing a novel physical consumer product (in the paper-handdling/office stationery sector). In the world of CAD / industrial product design SolidWorks appears to be the de facto standard - everyone you talk to seem to use it. We have commissioned a product design consultancy to do a chunk of design work on our product and unsurprisingly it has been completed using SolidWorks. (nightmare!)

Unfortunately SolidWorks goes to great lenghts to stop other companies from being able to upload and edit their data files.

Why is it SolidWorks so expensive?

"Why is it so rubbish" is my first question! It is a monumental bloatware like nothing I have ever seen. The intallation files are 15GB. Yes GB! And the learning curve is horrendous. I have used some fairly similar CAD software (OnShape) but nothing is remotely obvious in SolidWorks. On the upside, "everything is possible" is also more or less true. (And at those prices you would certainly hope so!)

The SolidWbusiness model is that they suck you in as a student or (if you are lucky) as an startup. But once that expires you are on the hook for what, $4000+ per year?

Thereafter you sign up for thousands and thousands of £££ but you get basically unlimited amounts of support. But you absolutely need it because everything is SO counter-intuitive. And time is money! And also because all your suppliers use it. And having learnt you way around the software, that becomes a huge personal investment that you have made.... so then you don't want to invest your time & energy learning anything else!


IMHO, it's an absolutely appalling situation. But my source files are in SolidWorks, so what can I do? It is the industry standard and for now at least I'm stuck with it. And for this year at least I have free software.

Ideologically I would MUCH prefer to use something else. SolidWorks is dated... bloated... clunky... insanely non-intuitive. The whole thing needs to be re-written. And many people have tried (e.g. OnShape). But ironically I can't AFFORD to use anything else because they are all too expensive and for this year I get to use it for free AND with excellent technical support...

On the upside, at least I can still read the SolidWorks user interface on my 4K screen, without blurring the whole UI (unlike in Xara - don't get me started!)


@theinonen
Yes, that is very roughly what I am trying to do. (Although I am wanting to use just the lines of the 3D view that are visible on my screen - a bit like a screenshot... It's clunky but I seem to have found a way now)

My question is what is the BEST FORMAT to get a SolidWorks DRAWING into Xara?

One (slight) problem is that is that if you import it into XDP (v10) via PDF format, then all the shapes - everything - comes in as a single line, the curves come in as a series of short lines, rather than a true curve (B-spline). Fwiw, the line comes out rather fat too.

I also tried exporting it into Adobe Acrobat (.AI) format, but that had all the exact same problems. Except that the curves had fewer nodes making them horribly chunky.

Does the latest version of XDP (v16) handle it's imports any better than v10?

From what I can see, it looks like .PDF is probably the best we can hope for, yes?

J


PS This thread has inspired me. I just contacted OnShape to see if they can't do a "Entrepreneurial License" deal to compare with SolidWorks. A long-shot but with a shot, me thinks.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by shiphen

Here's the background.

I am developing a novel physical consumer product (in the paper-handdling/office stationery sector). In the world of CAD / industrial product design SolidWorks appears to be the de facto standard - everyone you talk to seem to use it. We have commissioned a product design consultancy to do a chunk of design work on our product and unsurprisingly it has been completed using SolidWorks. (nightmare!)

Unfortunately SolidWorks goes to great lenghts to stop other companies from being able to upload and edit their data files.

Why is it SolidWorks so expensive?

"Why is it so rubbish" is my first question! It is a monumental bloatware like nothing I have ever seen. The intallation files are 15GB. Yes GB! And the learning curve is horrendous. I have used some fairly similar CAD software (OnShape) but nothing is remotely obvious in SolidWorks. On the upside, "everything is possible" is also more or less true. (And at those prices you would certainly hope so!)

The SolidWbusiness model is that they suck you in as a student or (if you are lucky) as an startup. But once that expires you are on the hook for what, $4000+ per year?

Thereafter you sign up for thousands and thousands of £££ but you get basically unlimited amounts of support. But you absolutely need it because everything is SO counter-intuitive. And time is money! And also because all your suppliers use it. And having learnt you way around the software, that becomes a huge personal investment that you have made.... so then you don't want to invest your time & energy learning anything else!


IMHO, it's an absolutely appalling situation. But my source files are in SolidWorks, so what can I do? It is the industry standard and for now at least I'm stuck with it. And for this year at least I have free software.

Ideologically I would MUCH prefer to use something else. SolidWorks is dated... bloated... clunky... insanely non-intuitive. The whole thing needs to be re-written. And many people have tried (e.g. OnShape). But ironically I can't AFFORD to use anything else because they are all too expensive and for this year I get to use it for free AND with excellent technical support...

On the upside, at least I can still read the SolidWorks user interface on my 4K screen, without blurring the whole UI (unlike in Xara - don't get me started!)

---

Thanks for the explanation.

It's a pity you didn't find a design house using onShape! (yes, it's easy to say in hindsight).

Edit: I just read that onShape can import solidworks. I've also read that the 3D software I'm getting used to has a pipeline available to transfer between solidworks and MOI3D. Unlike onShape MOI3D is a one-off purchase (US$ 280).

Fusion360 is also an option (imports solidworks). There's a free license for startups..

https://www.autodesk.co.uk/campaigns...n-360/startups

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by pauland

Thanks for the explanation.

It's a pity you didn't find a design house using onShape! (yes, it's easy to say in hindsight).

If you have skill in onShape perhaps you can recreate the finished design yourself or have someone re-create it in onShape?

I'll admit that I have limited knowledge in this area, but I can't imagine that your product requires such expensive software and that a cheaper product would do equally as well. In the 3D printer world users are creating things using far cheaper software.

As I mentioned earlier I know of one company that makes furniture designs using Lightwave3D ( a polygonal modeller and a separate renderer ) to create new furniture designs. Once they get firm orders they transfer those models to CAD systems to be refined and put into manufacture - so they are transferring designs between two different types of model - Polygonal to Nurbs.

I would hesitate to be locked into a $4,000 a year ecosystem unless you have a great revenue source to pay for it (then it doesn't matter so much).

---

The history of OnShape.com is that it was founded by some ex-employees of SolidWorks. They raised $169 million. OnShape uses SAAS technology. Basically there is is nothing to install and everything happens through your browser. It sounds terrible but works superbly. They obviously have some very impressive servers doing all the processing and rendering. I believe it also allows teams to work on the same design - but that is of no use to me.

I started using OnShape because they gave you up to 100MB of private space for free, indefinitely. They also had superb support and excellent training videos. I used it for 3D Printing. I tried about 6 or 7 different alternative 3D CAD packages (including SketchUp) and I hate them all. But I loved OnShape.

Unfortunately they have now gone the same way as SolidWorks - horribly expensive. It now costs between $1500 and $2000/year to get any private space.

So very ironically, although SolidWorks is even more expensive than OnShape, because SolidWorks is free (for startups) for the first year, I can't financially afford to use OnShape!

Part of the problem of course is if I need my model-makers to adjust the disign slightly the will need 3D CAD files that they can actually edit.

J


P.S. What's the difference between "Xara Designer Pro+" and "Xara Designer Pro 17" ? I am now doing a trial of the former...
I am probably incorrect but even in Window's "High DPI Scaling Overide" mode, it feels like XDP+ is not anti-aliasing as well as my XDP v10 (which I had to uninstall).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by shiphen

P.S. What's the difference between "Xara Designer Pro+" and "Xara Designer Pro 17" ? I am now doing a trial of the former...
I am probably incorrect but even in Window's "High DPI Scaling Overide" mode, it feels like XDP+ is not anti-aliasing as well as my XDP v10 (which I had to uninstall).

---

Pro+ is a Xara-controlled product and linked to Xara Cloud. It is a subscription service for both together. I don't have 4k but I have need not difference in rendering.

Why ever did you uninstall XDPX10? It has a difference licence. Put it back now!

Acorn

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Acorn

Pro+ is a Xara-controlled product and linked to Xara Cloud. It is a subscription service for both together. I don't have 4k but I have need not difference in rendering.

Why ever did you uninstall XDPX10? It has a difference licence. Put it back now!

Acorn

---

From what I can see Pro+ is the same things as Version 17 of XDP, no? And I am hoping that it has a better engine for importing from other formats (e.g. .AI and .PDF)

Attachment 127138

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by shiphen

From what I can see Pro+ is the same things as Version 17 of XDP, no? And I am hoping that it has a better engine for importing from other formats (e.g. .AI and .PDF)

Attachment 127138

---

No, its version is different to and ahead of XDPXv17.0. It is aligned with Xara Cloud updates, which are 3-8 more often that the 3-4/yr MagiXara manages.

It is trying to target a different maket.
Where I can leverage it is from website delivery I can quickly create a corporate presence that can deliver other media and publications.

If the Import for .AI & .PDF are not to your liking, why are you not hitting Xara with change requests?

Acorn

Quote:

---

Why is it SolidWorks so expensive?

"Why is it so rubbish" is my first question! It is a monumental bloatware like nothing I have ever seen. The intallation files are 15GB. Yes GB! And the learning curve is horrendous. I have used some fairly similar CAD software (OnShape) but nothing is remotely obvious in SolidWorks. On the upside, "everything is possible" is also more or less true. (And at those prices you would certainly hope so!)

The SolidWbusiness model is that they suck you in as a student or (if you are lucky) as an startup. But once that expires you are on the hook for what, $4000+ per year?

Thereafter you sign up for thousands and thousands of £££ but you get basically unlimited amounts of support. But you absolutely need it because everything is SO counter-intuitive. And time is money! And also because all your suppliers use it. And having learnt you way around the software, that becomes a huge personal investment that you have made.... so then you don't want to invest your time & energy learning anything else!

---

Solidworks, may be bloated for YOU, but this software serves hundred thousands of engineers in various very different fields. Thus, it needs features for milling, turning, welding, sheet metal fabrication, rendering, and so on. It is a bit pricier than most of its competitors, but there are also way more expensive CADs. As far as I know, CATIA costs 30'000 bucks and more.

But back to your problem. I don't think any CAD can convert a drawing view to Nurbs or Bezier curves. I guess you have to live with all those tiny line segments. I think, if you scale up the drawing, you should also get a more precise curves (with even more line segments)
Line withs can be changed in the Solidworks Layers. I'm not shure though, if that has any influence to your output file.

agree, I don't think that you can expect to get a 3D drawing app view into a 2D app such as xara - unless the 3D drawing app actually allows an export of the view in a way suitable for 2D

No great contribution to the discussion but I just downloaded the free version of nanoCAD that claims to handle proprietary standard CAD file extension .DWG.
If your product designers created your master file, why can they not supply the appropriate anti-aliased snapshots or vectors you require?

Acorn

For completeness, what has worked well enough for now was to export into PDF format.

Thank you for all your thoughts.

J

One option I didn't see mentioned in this thread is to try exporting an STL file from Solidworks. Then you can open it in Blender (it has an STL import addon, I believe), or another 3d package with STL capabilities. Then you should be able to play around with it in Blender https://www.blender.org, which is free. I don't know how it will handle a 4k display. You will also probably have to play around with STL export settings in Solidworks. It has been a long time since I used it, so can't be sure.

Or, if you don't want to play with Blender, the simplest option is probably what another person said. Create the views you want in 'drawing space' and then save the (2d) drawings as PDF, which Xara can handle.