Unfortunately I found an issue with more complex CAD model than in my previous test.
Larger STEP file loaded only some meshes and not full model. All parts seem to be in listed in outliner, but in viewport those “missing” parts have only center points, no visible mesh at all.
I tried
All Hierarchy modes
Skip Faulty Solids
Rebuilding with different quality
Attempt fix STEP charset
Missing parts seem to have unique ID’s in custom properties and correct names, so therefore read from the file and not skipped. Parented Hierarchy looks correct in outliner as well.
This same STEP file works with STEPper_1.0_for_Blender_version_2.93_or_later.zip, but these 2 latest versions (alpha + RC) resulted same faulty import.
I can send the file confidentially to you Ambi if you would like to take a look? I can also still try to test in case I find some clue what would be the issue, but I think I have tried most options already.
Is there a way of getting a ‘smoother’ result on curves? I have a setting of Linear Deflection 0.5, Angular Deflection 0.3. I tried to change these settings, and it doesn’t seem to make a difference.
You should be able to decrease the linear deflection. Try smaller values like 0.1 or 0.02 etc. It’s the distance from the real parametric surface to the polygonal mesh.
WOW! That does make a difference! I cranked the ‘detail’ from 100 - 500, and you can see the ‘smoothness’ now. FYI I’m using 1.1 on Blender Alpha 3.0, in case you’re wondering.
Here are some piccies so people can see the before and after difference.
I finally purchased. This is Awesome man!
Could you add an option to convert the angular deflection value to degrees? If I’m understanding correctly, it appears to be in radians. I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s mind just plain doesn’t work that way. I’d love the option to input the angle number in degrees instead. .5 radians is pretty close to 30 degrees, so that’s a perfect starting point for sure, but if have a select object I need to retessellate at 15, 10, or 5 degrees it’d just be nice to be able to put those values in without thinking about converting.
And is linear deflection always in meters? I think that would make sense, due to blender units being meters, but it could be nice to have a “units” converter for that as well. I might want the linear deflection to be something like .1mm or .01inches, based on what I know from my CAD file’s tessellation. If it’s a small object, it’s just kind of nice to not have to deal with numbers like 0.000254 if you have a small object and you want .01inches.
I’m just getting into it now to see how it will best fit into my workflow, but it seems Crazy fast for what it’s doing. And I love that you can update just a single object and that you give multiple import organization options.
Blender units aren’t always meters. It’s user configurable. STEP file units aren’t often meters either. The default is millimeters. But if you’re for example doing PCBs, it can be mils, which is not even a part of the metric system.
I’ll add the angular deflection as degrees to the list for consideration. Also see if something can be done with the units being more clear in the linear deflection case. It’s not a huge priority but certainly nice to have.
Hi @ambi: I’ve been using your addon for a while and it works great. However, in the latest version (1.1.1 rc2) I noticed that edge seams (red lines in Blender) are not made any more on the edges of nurbs patches. This was actually a useful little feature. Is there a way to re-enable it?
And two more smaller issues:
The scale input field only shows two decimal places. I always import at 0.001 scale to switch from CAD (base unit is millimeter) to Blender (base unit 1 meter), but this shows up as “0.00”. Could you expand this field to at least go down to 0.001?
The imported objects do not have their scale applied. Which is bad for a lot of operations in Blender. It would be cool if the addon auto-applied the scale.
Really? It was my understanding that blender’s internal units always remains 1 meter. Originally it was intended to not be Any units, but once they introduced physical attributes like physics, but also lighting, materials with ray distance, etc they decided to use meters.
I noticed the plugin changes the scale at the model level rather than the data, so you have to apply scale to get it to be correct? Is there a better way? Because I definitely want to keep instances, but you can’t apply scale to instances. Although, it probably wouldn’t be All that difficult to make a script to do it for you. Set scale to 1. In edit mode, scale the data back down the opposite amount you scaled up by.
Some people will ask why I want scale to be 1 I’m sure. So that’s because if you use things like procedural materials, the scale matches from one scene to the next. People design materials around a scale of 1.0. So if they wanted a specific section to look like it’s 3 inches, if you have a scale of .001 on your object, the material will be Waaay off.
For now I can just change my units to meters in the step file, but that’s kind of annoying is all. I’m guessing I’ll have to adjust the tolerance as well. I’m not sure how your importer works, so best to do that just in case.
So I do have a blender question probably. I am getting really nice shading on import. But if I have to change anything about the model then I have to clear the custom split normals, and turn on shade smooth. But then, since the face sizes vary so much even within the same smoothed area the shading is wonky. Add weighted normals? Nah, didn’t really help. So what magic method for creating the normals did you use in the first place? Because it’s nice and smooth, and I can’t seem to get that back if I did any edits.
I also can’t get the import options to save. So I only see “Mesh detail” on import. Is there a way to get that to actually save? I change the option in the preferences and save preferences. But then it changes back on new file.
I need the scale of my objects to be 1, so tried using meters. I’ve tried doing it in Rhino And in SolidWorks, but both, when imported into blender end up going back to meters.
It seems my only solution is to change the unit scale to .001. It doesn’t seem to matter what my system units are, nor what units are in the step file.
Is that the only solution if you want scale of each object to be 1?
It should read the unit information from the STEP file and scale accordingly. If that’s not happening it’s a bug and you can send me problematic files and I can take a look.
On your other questions, they are more of a feature requests and I’m looking into and considering them, so can’t just give a direct, immediate answer.
caster_M_SW_template.STEP (1.3 MB)
Ok, this file, I ran through solidworks template in order to force the scale on every part to be meters. When I open it in rhino, it’s read as meters there as well.
But when I import into blender, it’s several hundred meters high.
I fully expect this to be user error. But in case it’s not, I appreciate you looking into it.
