X plane helicopter introduction

rotorhub · 29th May 2021, 06:55 PM

I have been using Solidworks for many years. I still make complicated parts in SW, and export them as VRML. Unfortunately, there is no control over the tesselation during this export, execpt for detail level. You can adjust this in Solidworks. Lower the resolution and use smoothing in AC3D to make the part look good.

The mesh from SW can be messy, and your left and right side might not be mirrored versions of each other. I found that a good practice for a tidy mesh is to make half of the part, and then mirror it in AC3D. Obviously It does not work for all type of objects. But if it can be revolved or mirrored around an axis, you will have a more consistent 3D object. After doing a revolving/mirroring you can join all vertices and clean up the model.

Note: I have tested a payware OBJ exporter from SW, but it did not work that well. But that was a few years ago.

A nice feature in AC3D, would be to make quads of your imported VRML object. Then you could clean it up faster, an then triangualate.

Yes, let us know how you are doing.

29th May 2021, 06:55 PM	#1
rotorhub Junior Member Advanced member Join Date: Dec 2016 Posts: 25	Re: X plane helicopter introduction I have been using Solidworks for many years. I still make complicated parts in SW, and export them as VRML. Unfortunately, there is no control over the tesselation during this export, execpt for detail level. You can adjust this in Solidworks. Lower the resolution and use smoothing in AC3D to make the part look good. The mesh from SW can be messy, and your left and right side might not be mirrored versions of each other. I found that a good practice for a tidy mesh is to make half of the part, and then mirror it in AC3D. Obviously It does not work for all type of objects. But if it can be revolved or mirrored around an axis, you will have a more consistent 3D object. After doing a revolving/mirroring you can join all vertices and clean up the model. Note: I have tested a payware OBJ exporter from SW, but it did not work that well. But that was a few years ago. A nice feature in AC3D, would be to make quads of your imported VRML object. Then you could clean it up faster, an then triangualate. Yes, let us know how you are doing.