Mesh to CAD surface

Hi all,

I’m facing issues trying to turn a polygonal mesh into a zero-thickness surface in Solidworks. This CAD surface is going to be used to create a mold where surface quality is very important. Trying to copy the mesh geometry by hand modeling has so far proved unsuccessful (someone much more skilled at CAD than me gave it a shot and couldn't get it). Unfortunately, my modeling skills and knowledge are currently pretty modest, so I was hoping you guys could help.

I’ve read through this thread, and it seemed like responses ranged from “this process is enormously tedious and requires skill” to “I (daily Rhino user) could do this in an hour.” So kind of confusing.

What I’m looking for is a tool/process that can do this simply, reliably and to a relatively high degree of precision. I’d also like to avoid anything with a steep learning curve if at all possible. I’ve looked at Mesh2Surface and this software, Geomagic, which looks a bit fancier.

As for the output file, I’m not sure whether it should be parametric or some other type of model (NURBS?). The final touches are going to be done in NX before they go to the mold maker, so I assume this means that the model should be parametric? Then again, it’s really important to get the details right, and I’ve read that parametric approximations can mess that up. Thoughts?

Thanks!

where did you get the mesh from? Scanned part?

there are some 3rd party software's that run inside of SW, one is DezignWorks that simplifies the process and works the same as SW.

The mesh itself went through a mesh deformer, so there's no actual original object. Just the mesh.

DezignWorks looks interesting, working inside of Solidworks is a big advantage. I'll look into it!

I've used a trial of Geomagic and it worked brilliantly for turning a mesh into a solid model. IIRC I think it sells for something around $10k.

I've done this in Geomagic Design X. That is, approximated a NURBS surface to a mesh and then exported direct to Solidworks There are various a Geomagic products all from companies they bought so the have old names too. I think design X used to be rapid form if anyone was wondering. And it is like $10k or more

How about showing a pic of what you have to give us a better understanding of what it is.

Sorry for the delay in response. Midterms .

A canned operation will likely not leave the desired smoothness and tangency desired

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We came to the same conclusion. Since this is an aerodynamic application, both smoothness (continuity) and tangency are of utmost importance. If all else fails, we will try to replicate the mesh by modeling in NX. However, this has not been successful for us in the past.

How about showing a pic of what you have to give us a better understanding of what it is.

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Good idea.

Here's an extreme case of what we'd be looking at:


Iso view of the mesh:


The bumps on the bottom of the final mesh will likely be much smaller in radius. Not sure how small yet though. However, that's the kind of geometry we can expect.

Have a look at this:

Reverse Engineering with SpaceClaim

I am a Solidworks user and it's is useless when it comes to working with any mesh over a few 100K points. I've used Geomagic studio to derive NURBS surfaces a then use SW to trim and blend however SpaceClaims direct modeling seems much more efficient. However, I haven't use it past a 30 trial.