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Importing .stp (step) CAD files into Cinema 4D without triangulation?


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Hey everyone,

 

A client gave me a .stp CAD file of their product. When I import it into Cinema 4D, there's a lot of triangulation that's problematic. Is there any plugin, conversion service, import setting, etc that I can use to reduce or eliminate this?

I've been trying everything with no luck!

 

Thanks,

Haruko

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No, not really. Generally speaking, CAD programs do not consider quality topology to be any of their business ! Any mesh settings have to be made in the file that produced the step, and usually that is limited to only choosing mesh resolution. Usually the geometry in these models is appalling, and laregly unsuitable for additional modelling later, and worse still, relies on normal tags to even maintain a smooth surface, which leads to further problems if editing is necessary.

 

Cinema has tools that can sometimes rescue these sorts of meshes (remesh, untriangulate, volume builder etc) but results tend to be verging on unusable with hard surface type objects because edge flow cannot be taken into account, and outline preservation is not yet foolproof. There are plugins (Quad remesher etc) that do a slightly better job than Cinemas native tools, but not a single one that will work on every mesh you give it.

 

In most cases, it is faster and better to retopo the mesh , or rebuild it with decent edge flow than it is to try rescue the imported model.

I'd say 50% of my client modelling work is exactly that; fixing, or rebuilding rubbish CAD files ! 🙂

 

CBR

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3 minutes ago, Cerbera said:

No, not really. Generally speaking, CAD programs do not consider quality topology to be any of their business ! Any mesh settings have to be made in the file that produced the step, and usually that is limited to only choosing mesh resolution. Usually the geometry in these models is appalling, and laregly unsuitable for additional modelling later, and worse still, relies on normal tags to even maintain a smooth surface, which leads to further problems if editing is necessary.

 

Cinema has tools that can sometimes rescue these sorts of meshes (remesh, untriangulate, volume builder etc) but results tend to be verging on unusable with hard surface type objects because edge flow cannot be taken into account, and outline preservation is not yet foolproof.

 

In most cases, it is faster and better to retopo the mesh , or rebuild it with decent edge flow than it is to try rescue the imported model.

I'd say 50% of my client modelling work is exactly that; fixing, or rebuilding rubbish CAD files ! 🙂

 

CBR

Thank you, that was super helpful. I'm wasn't familiar with working with CAD files.

I was just starting to think that it would be more efficient if I remodeled this! It's a relatively simple product.

 

Thanks again!

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5 hours ago, davetwo said:

The 'best' quad mesh can nomally be made if you convert to OBJ using MoI (moi3d.com). Its never the same as a natively modelled mesh though.

If the CAD file is not too big I'd be happy to make a conversion for you to see how it turns out.

 

Ahh thank you so much for the generous offer. I truly appreciate it.

I had a friend convert the file for me and it wasn't that much better. I'm going to have to remodel this.

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