any ways to import solidworks meshing to preview?

[sumiray]

I read the manual and i do know that solidwork mesh cannot be imported to preview directly. But, is there any way i can still import indirectly with mesh generated in solidworks still intact? or is it unavoidable that i have to mesh the geometry in another software and import it to preview?

[maas]

PreView has tet-meshing capabilities. If you can import as a triangular closed surface, you can use PreView to generate a tet-mesh: after you import the model, select the object and activate the mesh panel. One of the tool buttons is labelled TetGen. Select this and the TetGen parameters panel will display. You can change some parameters and then press Apply to mesh your surface. Give that a try and let us know how that goes.

Thanks,

Steve.

[sumiray]

Hi Steve,


my model is a hollow hemipshere and i imported it to preview as a *stl file. But preview crashes every time i try to apply TetGen.
Is there any problem with my geometry model that renders it un-meshable?

[maas]

Strange. This file is not causing any problems for me. I've attached a .k (lsdyna) file to show that it works for me. This file contains a tetmesh created with TetGen. What version of PreView are you using? Are you using the most recent one?

Steve.

[sumiray]

Thank you for the prompty reply, Steve!

I tried it again and played around with the settings (radius-edge ratio, element size and coplanar test tolerance). TetGen only meshed when the element size was set to zero. When i changed the value to non-zero, Preview always stops responding and closes. Is that normal?

And when i set the ratio as 1.5, element size: left it as zero, and test tolerance: 1e-8, i did finally get the tet mesh but it's not as regular and uniform as preferred. Is there any ways to go about repairing/refining the mesh especially around the hole?

[maas]

I've played around a bit with some parameters and I have not been able to get PreView to crash. Can you give a set of values that causes problems for you? I'll see if I can replicate the problem on my end.

So the thing about TetGen is that it starts from the triangulated surface that you load. Since the facets on this surface are smaller near the hole, your tetmesh will have the same non-uniform distribution of elements. The only way around it is to create a more uniform triangular mesh.

Cheers,

Steve.

[sumiray]

i set the ratio as 2.
element size as 0.5
and tolerance as 0.

and preview stopped responding when i tried to apply tetgen. it only works when i set the element size = 0.
&regarding the uniform triangular mesh, are you referring to the surface mesh?

much thanks!

[maas]

I think 0.5 might be a bit too small. With a size of 1 TetGen created ~1.7 million elements. With an element size of 0.5 it will create many, many more. That's probably why PreView is not responding because it is taking very long and a ton of memory to generate this mesh.

Yes, I am referring to the triangular surface mesh from the STL file.

Steve.