Importing Composite Parts from Onshape to SimSolid

Neil Bradley
Neil Bradley Altair Community Member
edited July 2021 in Community Q&A

I'm having a problem importing geometry from OnShape into the stand-alone version of SimSolid. My assembly has imported geometry and one of these pieces of imported geometry was imported as what OnShape calls a composite part. For the sake of describing this problem I'll call this composite part a plunger. One of the other pieces of imported geometry is a pulley, and it is NOT a composite part.

When I import the model into SimSolid using the PDM connection, the pulley will import correctly, but the plunger is missing. There is no warning or error. It is simply missing. When I export my model from OnShape as a STEP file and import it into SimSolid using the File method, the plunger imports correctly, but the pulley is missing. Again no warning or error. It just is not there.

I suspect (I haven't tried this) that if I break the plunger into its individual parts in the CAD import, it will then import correctly using the PDM method, but it will also destroy all of my mates and connections and I'll have to recreate everything in my assembly.

Is there a way I can get my geometry to import into SimSolid without having the reassemble everything into my model?

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Answers

  • Girish Mudigonda_21018
    Girish Mudigonda_21018
    Altair Employee
    edited July 2021

    Hi Bradley,

    Currently, composites parts cannot be read into SimSolid, but their individual solids based components can. The limitation is that the composite part cannot be defined as closed. Their individual sub-components (as long as they are solids and not surfaces) can still import fine and can be analyzed in SimSolid, as long as they’re not labeled as “closed”.

  • Neil Bradley
    Neil Bradley Altair Community Member
    edited July 2021

    Thanks for the response! However as I mentioned, this is from an IMPORT. I know there's a "closed" option when creating a composite part from an existing group of solids, but I don't see any option when importing geometry to NOT define the composite as closed (see screenshot).

    image

    It also doesn't explain why the pulley (not a composite) doesn't show in SimSolid when I import via file, but it does when directly connecting to OnShape via the PDM connection.

  • Girish Mudigonda_21018
    Girish Mudigonda_21018
    Altair Employee
    edited July 2021

    Can you share the file on Onshape to emails below, so we can investigate?

    abaulin@altair.com and girishm@altair.com?

  • Neil Bradley
    Neil Bradley Altair Community Member
    edited July 2021

    Shared.

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