SW & SpaceVision

We are having to deal with a package called SpaceVision, which used to be a
proprietary product of Nissan Motor, but is now offered to the public. I
have not found a way to get this info into SolidWorks. Does anyone have any
experience with these files?

A .drg file appears to be the native file format, and a .wrl is a VRML
format, but neither SW nor UG will open it. The only outputs I see are a
bitmap (not much use, obviously) and a binary output. However, I can't get
SW to open the binary file. Any thoughts?

WT

 

Wayne,

Real confused here,,, I'ts a CAD system ????? Can't find anything about it
on google.

And it has no neutral output ??? (STEP, IGES, etc,)

Or,, your expected to read it's native output into SW
????????????????????????????

SW can open a binary file ??????? What kind of binary file ???? Parasolid
x_b ??????

You've been doing this stuff much too long to expect any useful information
from this sketchy description. Cmon man... fill in the blanks


Regards

Mark

 

Wayne,

Doing a search for .drg file extension at www.filext.com turned up someyhing
called Dyno2000 Car Design .

If you go to there website, it looks like its some kind of engine simulation
program.

Sorry, no real information,
Muggs

 

Yeah, I know I left several holes, but that's the problem - I told you about
all I know about it. There isn't even a help menu in the package. I also
found basically nothing on a Google search except something related to OGL
settings for video.

So, with that being said, let me try to give you more info. It is a CAD
system that I think is probably on a scale with Catia in that Nissan uses it
to design their vehicles, and used to be proprietary to them. But File/Save
As only gives the option of the native .drg. File/Export has the option to
save as Binary, which produces a file with a .bin extension. However, SW
doesn't recognize the file at all. I even tried to rename it with a .x_t
extension, just on a fluke that it might work - it didn't. Obviously I
don't know what the format is of the "binary" file - only that SW, UG, and
Catia all don't recognize it.

There is a Tree export which blows apart an assy into individual files (.bin
format) but that doesn't help much.

So, those appear to be the only meaningful outputs (others are bitmap, color
table, etc.) and I don't seem to be able to use them.

We have sent an email to Japan to ask about IGES output or some other module
that maybe we don't have, but I am told we won't hear anything this week as
they are all on vacation. I'm also not too hopeful about being able to get
somewhere. A few years ago we got some engine files from Nissan, but I'm
told that the US people gave them a trip through IDEAS to export a STEP
file. So, I guess I'll have to wait & see what we learn from Japan, I just
thought there might be a chance that someone else had already been through
this.

WT

 

Wayne,

Good luck,, I worked for a Japanese company for 10 years. CAD data
translation (even between divisions) was always a major pain. Even plain
communication was difficult.

The Japanese are obssesively secretive, and won't divulge information even
when it's in there best interest. For instance, we had a set of tools
(molds) to duplicate for an OEM product that was already running in Japan.
Our japanese counterparts sent us CAD drawings of the tools. What we didn't
know was that the drawings had never been updated after the original tools
were made. There were alot of tweaks made to the original design to
compensate for warp, and other things. Turns out, the marked up drawings
were in the tooling engineer's "secret" file, and it was unthinkable that he
should have to share them. This was totally acceptable from their cultural
viewpoint. Well, we had no choice but to repeat all of the trial and error
tweaking to finally get good parts. The tools ended up costing the company
over twice as much. I guess this was OK to them. Go figure,,,


Regards

Mark

 

VRML seems to be a path you can use. Several CAD and animation
packages will import VRML. Do you have any other CAD programs that
might open the VRML and then export something else you can get into
Solidworks? I can see one potential problem...I think VRML is a mesh
format, and solidworks doesn't accept that at all. (I am currently
trying to get mesh models from AutoCAD into SW.)

Polytrans (by OKINO) is a program just for file translation and has a
lot of options for converting. However, I have only used an older
version.

Joe Dunfee