Exporting Step From MCADs

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Modified by Admin on Nov 6, 2013

Summary

Solidworks

The Solidworks project contains an assembly file which can be loaded and exported as a Step AP214 file. When exporting Step AP214 versions, the options should be set for Solid/Surface Geometry, as in the accompanying image.

These Step exports will read directly into Altium Designer during any Generic Step model placement. Because the file is a collection of volume objects, the heirarchy of these objects is preserved in the Free models area of the PCB editor panel.

This area includes the opportunity to hide individual volumes. This panel will also allow designers to checkmark/uncheck any volume for inclusion/exclusion in any subsequent Design Rule checks.

It is important to note that the nested volumes are only available in a 2 tier format similar to the one shown in the original Solidworks listing. Any information beyond this level will be preserved but cannot be hidden as an individual object.

PRO/Engineer

When trying to export from PTC PRO/Engineer, the export options under 'Save a copy' include step - but no versions. The export options dialogue will open after clicking 'OK' to begin the save process.

The following options should be set when exporting for Altium Designer.

Again, it is important to remember that if a file exists where the nested volumes that incorporate the PCB model is more than two tiers down in heirarchy, then the designer will need to reload the assembly from a point no more than one tier above the pcb blank. As an example, consider the following Hierarchy contained in a Pro/E document.

You can see from the ProE listing that the object volumes of interest are contained within the top model label by a single level. Because the PCB blank assembly is contained within this level, the other models can be hidden and the pcb blank model can be disregarded as a whole when necessary as can be seen in the Winter 09 import image below.

There are times when the nesting, for whatever reason, has the model of interest below two levels of hierarchy as in the following example from ProE. The resultant Altium import is on the right.

This time, although the models import correctly, the nesting leaves the designer unable to manipulate views and Design Rule Checks of individual volumes. This situation needs to be avoided when trying to determine board shapes which result in complete assembly clearance checks.