API question: "save as" STL (with color) file format?

Hi!

I am using Solidworks API in VC++ 6.0
I could use "saveAs4" to save as STL files.
But now I wish to save to STL files with color information (R,G,B)
Is it possible for me to do this?

Thank you!

 

Well I'm sure you've already been through the API help. Nothing there
that I could see to help you out. In fact, from looking at the
SolidWorks UI I don't think this can be done (ie - file -> save). If
it isn't possible through UI it most certainly wouldn't be available
through the api. Perhaps there is a third party program for opening
and saving SW files as STL you could utilize?

 

Why color an STL?

 

Thank you, Mr Who. Indeed, no special type of STL could be saved in
SolidWorks UI.
Actually I searched on the web and found something about coloured STL
in links such as this:
http://rpdrc.ic.polyu.edu.hk/old_files/stl_colour_binary_format.htm

What I wish to do is to obtain the colour information from a part or
assembly file.
STL format stores vertices and normals, while in the API color
information can be obtained only by features or faces (using
MaterialProperties). I have the problem of matching the color obtained
from API methods with STL structure.

Thanks a lot.

 

I see. It might be possible, but I am having trouble getting my head
around it.

the form of triangles. Each triangle can have its own color. So the
million dollar question is; How do you map the color on a face to the
triangles that get mapped out to an STL file?

The answer is to hire a $10 an hour intern to spend the whole summer
color mapping =). Seriously though, you would have to find some means
of correlating the normal and vertex information with SolidWorks normal
and vertex information. But one thing you should investigate and may
not work is whether normals stay the same when exported to STL. There
will be two types of surfaces exported, planar and nonplanar. I would
assume the SolidWorks STL export has to break up nonplanar surfaces
into many triangles. These will be difficult to analzye and we can
return to later. Let's start by thinking about planar surfaces.

Start by making sure that exported planar surfaces properly report
their normal direction. Export a cube and match the triangles with the
SW model. If the normal information is correct then you are good to
continue.

Now you have to consider planar surfaces that have curved edges. I
assume these will get broken up into multiple triangles for STL too.
And I'm pretty much out of ideas here. Without being able to correlate
vertice information to SolidWorks edge/vertice information there is now
way to determine whether a specific triangle originally made up a face.

My next suggestion would be to put in an enhancement request to
SolidWorks because all of this would be a LOT easier if the translation
tool actually wrote out the color information for you.