Lattice Structures Export

SebastianM
SebastianM Altair Community Member
edited February 12 in Community Q&A

I would like to export the lattice structures generated by optistruct into a 3d printable format. Ive seen a few posts about this in the past and there didn't seem to be a way other than using an additional program like 3matic, so I was just wondering if this is still the case?

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Answers

  • etrud011
    etrud011 Altair Community Member
    edited July 2019

    I believe that there is a tcl script in the file exchange that can create cylinders from the tapered 1d elements. From there you can export the cylinders as stl objects and then use another software to merge them all together (meshmixer). Another method that might work is by using Altair Inspire to automatically generate the stl file with the lattice beams. 

  • SebastianM
    SebastianM Altair Community Member
    edited July 2019

    Thanks a lot for the reply etrud! Exporting via inspire did not work sadly..

    I´m not very experienced with tcl scripts, could you maybe tell me more about how that could work?

  • etrud011
    etrud011 Altair Community Member
    edited July 2019

    Your welcome Sebastien, 

     

    The tcl script I was referring to does not seem to be in the file exchange unfortunately. However extracting the tapered beams should be relatively straighforward.  

    Basically, for each tapered beam or element with card image PBEAML, get the dimensions of both radii. From there you create a solid cone using the coordinates of nodes associated with the beams. Continue until all the beams have been selected. Then when all the cones are created, mesh the exterior with trias and then export to stl. The final step is to merge the cones in another software.

    If you haven't used tcl before then you should look into the help files to learn more about the hypermesh api. Your commands are also printed out in a 'command.tcl' file during hypermesh sessions. 

     

  • SebastianM
    SebastianM Altair Community Member
    edited July 2019

    Thanks a lot again for your help, I really appreciate it!

    I´ll look into the help files and try to figure it based on what you told me!

  • Mohammed110
    Mohammed110 Altair Community Member
    edited September 2019

    Dear there

    I have an issue with Inspire, I run lattice optimization but when I tried to import into Ansys for example it shows me only the solid part from my model, it did not show the lattice structure

    Any help I would appreciate that

     

    Regards,

    Mohammed

  • D.G
    D.G Altair Community Member
    edited March 2020
    Altair Forum User said:

    Dear there

    I have an issue with Inspire, I run lattice optimization but when I tried to import into Ansys for example it shows me only the solid part from my model, it did not show the lattice structure

    Any help I would appreciate that

     

    Regards,

    Mohammed

    Same problem of Mohammed...
    And OSSmooth doesn' t work. Everytime I try it, HyperMesh tells me that 'None of the element id in .sh file matches input model' or something like this.

    Thank you in advance,
    Deborah

  • hemanth kollipara_20292
    hemanth kollipara_20292 Altair Community Member
    edited February 12
    etrud011 said:

    I believe that there is a tcl script in the file exchange that can create cylinders from the tapered 1d elements. From there you can export the cylinders as stl objects and then use another software to merge them all together (meshmixer). Another method that might work is by using Altair Inspire to automatically generate the stl file with the lattice beams. 

    Hi, thanks for the info but can you explain this in a bit detailed. I have obtained the TCL file but I really couldn't understand how to proceed further. 

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