handling of igs files

[fabian6]

Hello,

I am quite new to FreeCAD and tested out importing large igs files.
This works quite nice! Unfortunately it seems, that the surface PIDs get lost and I do not find a way to separate the complete geometry again!?
Would be nice, if this is possible in FreeCAD!

Best Regards!
Fabian

[jriegel]

Hi Fabian,
we use at the moment the raw OCC IGES importer which deliver only a TopoShape with no additional information.
That mean we only get the geometry with no addition information like color.

With python you can explore the resulting shape and pull out solids (if any) and Faces. But you will have no
additional information.

I don't think we will put much effort into IGES. IMO its obsolete and we will rather improve STEP import/export...

[fabian6]

Hi,

thanks for the quick reply!

I don't think we will put much effort into IGES. IMO its obsolete and we will rather improve STEP import/export...

So this would be already possible using step (I am not sure, if there exists different 'flavors' of it)!?

Best Regards!
Fabian

[wmayer]

Hi Fabian,

there is also a long thread about adding further information to entities of a STEP file. The solution therefore uses the pythonOCC modules. Look here: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=516 (the relevant stuff comes at the 3rd page)
If you like you can use it as it is for STEP I/O or you can adjust the scripts to use IGES reader/writer. But then you have to figure out on your own how to do that properly.

Cheers

[fabian6]

Hi,

thanks, I will take a look at it!
Fabian

[Guest]

I don't think we will put much effort into IGES. IMO its obsolete and we will rather improve STEP import/export...

I understand that IGES is in many ways obsolete, but two things keep it from going away.

1) Many programs charge extra for STEP importers / translators, so the only free file format is IGES.

2) Many companies provide IGES models since nearly everyone can import it, they don't have to worry about #1.

So while it would be nice if STEP would replace IGES everywhere, I'm afraid it's not going anywhere as long as #1 remains a fact.

I know I'd appreciate any improvements that can be made to IGES importing because many of us are stuck with IGES.

Steve

[jriegel]

I understand,
but be aware we try to build a CAD for the future and my plan is to align the whole product and meta information stuff
in the FreeCAD Assembly workbench as close to ISO 10303 (STEP) as possible. Writing software for half dead ancient standards
is tedious and blessed with little fun....

In other words - I put my time in FreeCAD to allow you to model with it and dont need a commercial package in the future.
Its not my aim to deliver you a cheap CAD viewer to save you some cash.

[Guest]

I put my time in FreeCAD to allow you to model with it and dont need a commercial package in the future.
Its not my aim to deliver you a cheap CAD viewer to save you some cash.

First I do thank you for the work you do to make FreeCAD.

I'm not just looking for a cheap CAD viewer to save some cash.

I really do want to use FreeCAD as a CAD tool, but most of the models I work on we do not create. We receive an IGES model and don't have an option to get a STEP model (which I would much prefer).

We use FreeCAD is to import the IGES into FreeCAD, then save it as STEP and make any (usually minor) modifications to the STEP model for further use.

Unfortunately some of the IGES models we get suffer from the problems discussed in this thread and then we have to do a lot of monkeying around to try to get our work done.

I understand that dealing with IGES is probably no fun and appreciate your project is more focused on people creating models from scratch than those dealing with models others have created.

Do you know of any other IGES to STEP conversion projects? I've tried a couple of IGES to STEP conversion programs and they did no better on problem IGES files than FreeCAD.

Thanks again for all the work you put into FreeCAD.

Steve

[jriegel]

In open source you will have not much luck I fear...

You can look at this:
http://www.cadexchanger.com/

Its also based on OpenCasCade.