IGES and STEP models

Discussion:

nonuckingfumber

2009-01-28 22:02:51 UTC

I am making a pad for a Tyco connector, and I noted that thier online
catlouge provides 3D models in IGES and STEP format.

Seems like a nice easy way to expand KiCad's 3D package library,
except that I cannot seem to find anyway to go from IGES or STEP
format to KiCad's wrl format or any of the input formats available for
Wings 3D.

I have spent a couple of hours searching around sourceforge trying to
find something that might act as an intermediary, but frankly I know
virtually nothing about 3D modelling and the formats they use.

Does anybody know a possible solution?

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Dan Andersson

2009-01-28 23:06:55 UTC

Permalink

Post by nonuckingfumber
I am making a pad for a Tyco connector, and I noted that thier online
catlouge provides 3D models in IGES and STEP format.
Seems like a nice easy way to expand KiCad's 3D package library,
except that I cannot seem to find anyway to go from IGES or STEP
format to KiCad's wrl format or any of the input formats available for
Wings 3D.
I have spent a couple of hours searching around sourceforge trying to
find something that might act as an intermediary, but frankly I know
virtually nothing about 3D modelling and the formats they use.
Does anybody know a possible solution?

IGES?!

I hoped for a total annihilation and death of that format!

I wrote a Fortran77 program 1987 or so, to translate Dec Palette format as
well as Autocad DXF to the IGES format. This was when Gerber plotters where
exclusive and hard to come by. We had Northern Europes largest flatbed Gerber
plotter so we did some weird work and translations from peeps like Ericsson
etc.
I had a loit of crap from IBM pukes as they used EBCDIC code as a difference
from y PDP11/23 and VAX 11/730 environments...

However, all translations ended up on punched paper with Gerber code on tobe
fed into a HP1000 computer. ( probably less brain than a dishwasher today ).

However,

The message is - stay away from IGES, let it die in peace. It's MIL Standard
and plain out silly. The last update was 1995 or so.

The only DuDe's I know of still insisting on IGES is the US DoD.... Doh!

STEP is not good enough either. This is still a desk design by a steering
group of board members, a fit all solution.

IGES - R.I.P

And send a torpedo the STEP's way too!

//Dan, M0DFI

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nonuckingfumber

2009-01-29 12:46:19 UTC

Permalink

Post by Dan Andersson
The only DuDe's I know of still insisting on IGES is the US DoD....

Doh!

Post by Dan Andersson
STEP is not good enough either. This is still a desk design by a steering
group of board members, a fit all solution.

Well I was not proposing that the formats be used in KiCAD. Apparently
Tyco DOES use them, and offers only these formats. Seeing as how Tyco
make an awful lot of the hardware we stick on boards, in particular
hard to draw but very important for 3D view eletromechanical stuff
(headers, connectors, relays, fuses etc.), I think it would be very
useful to be able to import them.

What I have been looking for is a program that can read IGES or STEP
and export in some format that would be more useful to us.

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yajeed2000

2009-01-29 13:31:17 UTC

Permalink

Post by Dan Andersson

Post by Dan Andersson
The only DuDe's I know of still insisting on IGES is the US DoD....

Doh!

Post by Dan Andersson
STEP is not good enough either. This is still a desk design by a

steering

Post by Dan Andersson
group of board members, a fit all solution.

Hi,
Try Blender from

http://www.blender.org/

Thia has a lot of import and export options.

David.

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nonuckingfumber

2009-01-29 14:47:56 UTC

Permalink

Post by yajeed2000
Hi,
Try Blender from
http://www.blender.org/
Thia has a lot of import and export options.
David.

OK, got Blender and whilst being a very nice 3D animation generator,
it did not seem to have IGES or STEP import options.

So I went to check on thier website in case there were perhaps some
utility or plugin, and found that they recommended some other packages
for getting images from IGES or STEP.

One of the applications recommended for conversions was BRL-CAD. I got
this and it seems like a pretty capable 3D modeller, albeit with a
primitive GUI, it relies heavily on a tcl command window to get full
functionality.

Interestingly, in the light of what Dan said, this is actually a free
open source project developed and released by the DoD :-)

There is no gui option for loading and saving, but there are tcl
commands to convert iges into BRL-CAD database format, and to convert
from BRL-CAD format to several formats supported by wingz, not to
mention VRML, so it may be that it could be used as a valid
alternative to wingz for 3D model creation.

So far thougth, I have not managed to use it, will let you no more re
success or failure as I proceed.

You can find BRL-CAD at www.brlcad.org

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Dan Andersson

2009-01-29 15:59:52 UTC

Permalink

Post by nonuckingfumber
Interestingly, in the light of what Dan said, this is actually a free
open source project developed and released by the DoD :-)

Yes, I have been running BRL Cad since 1997. I use it for radar lumination of
moving and stationary objects.

The GUI is actually quite decent when you get used to it.

BRL Cad also contains possibilities to do FEM on when you "throw" a mertal
object very hard and fast on another object ( car, boat , tank etc ).

Bear in mind that BRL = Ballistic Research Lab

//Dan, M0DFI

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nonuckingfumber

2009-01-29 16:52:59 UTC

Permalink

Post by Dan Andersson
Yes, I have been running BRL Cad since 1997. I use it for radar lumination of
moving and stationary objects.
The GUI is actually quite decent when you get used to it.

Great! I have now discovered that conversion is done with command line
utilities in the bin dirctory. There are individual utilities to
convert to and from BRL-CAD format.

So far, I have got an IGES file from <A
href="http://catalog.tycoelectronics.com/TE/bin/TE.Connect?C=1&PN=5520250-3&M=BYPN&LG=1&I=13">this
page</A> and I have used iges-g to convert to BRL-CAD. First time I
ran it there were warnings suggesting I try various options. In fact
unless you use either the -t or the -n option the output file contains
little less than a header.

Presumably at this stage I could just use g-vrml to get a kiCad 3D
package file, but alas I cannot get this to work. What I can do is
open the converted file in BRL-CAD, and if I activate the Geometry
Browser on the tools menu I can click on 'all' and see what appears to
be an accurate and detailed wire mesh of the connector.

It would be great if we could piece together the procedure to import
these files into KiCad. Apart from the Tyco products, if they are
required for DoD contracts then surly there are many other iges files
of 3D component shapes out there.

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Karl Schmidt

2009-01-29 19:05:05 UTC

Permalink

Post by nonuckingfumber
It would be great if we could piece together the procedure to import
these files into KiCad. Apart from the Tyco products, if they are
required for DoD contracts then surly there are many other iges files
of 3D component shapes out there.

It would be really nice if you wrote this up as a script or something or at least put up a
step-by-step in the wiki.. keep us posted..

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nonuckingfumber

2009-02-02 11:03:22 UTC

Permalink

Post by Karl Schmidt
It would be really nice if you wrote this up as a script or

something or at least put up a

Post by Karl Schmidt
step-by-step in the wiki.. keep us posted..

I have got frustratingly close, it is clear to me that it should be
possible to reduce this to a simple operation using BRL-CAD, but I
have no idea what I am doing in that package.

I spent a few more hours trying out random combinations but it became
clear to me that I would have to sit down and learn 3D modelling with
BRL-CAD properly, and I just do not have time for this at the moment,
sorry.

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Dan Andersson

2009-01-29 14:15:09 UTC

Permalink

Post by Dan Andersson

Post by Dan Andersson
The only DuDe's I know of still insisting on IGES is the US DoD....

Doh!

Post by Dan Andersson
STEP is not good enough either. This is still a desk design by a

steering

Post by Dan Andersson
group of board members, a fit all solution.

OK,

I might have overreacted but...

Both IGES and STEP are desk products created by demands from the DoD and
possibly MoD even if the UK MoD spend peanuts compared to DoD on electronics.

The major suppliers like Tyco et al must supply the DoD with IGES files to be
allowed selling their components.

Yes, I also agree on the need for a 3D exchange format but IGES ( and STEP )
has been proven to be to cumbersome for non DoD softwares and projects.

However, as the most detrimental reason to avoid IGES and STEP was development
costs. I browsed the IGES and STEP documentation and couldn't find any
copyrights etc.

This needs being researched before anyone includes IGES and/or STEP in a GPL
or open source licensed software.

As the development in this case might be done "at no costs", it might or might
not succeed.

I find it easy to add modules when needed but I never care about the 3D models
as I don't use them so I withdraw my voice and let other fight it out.

Creating a reasonably simple conversion tool might be possible without
implementing the whole shebang.

//Dan, M0DFI

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diegomongo

2009-10-19 23:19:10 UTC

Permalink

If you are still interested in doing this, I managed to use the IGES files in Tycos webpage using CADlook (evaluation version) and Wings 3D.

I opened the IGS with CADlook, exported it as STL, imported that file into Wings 3D and from there exporting it to WRL.

(I know there is an "exporting to VRML" in CADlook but it didn't work, kept crashing pcbnew).

Now i have all my tyco connectors in my virtual PCB! :B

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