Dock cleat, part 2: Using Shapr3D with SolidWorks

00:00

For this video, we're gonna be working inside of Shapr3D and we're gonna be exporting and importing different files into different CAD systems. So in this case, we have Shapr3D, we've got this part here on the screen, that's what it's gonna look like when we finish. But before we get to this point, we wanna export it out to another piece of software called SolidWorks. SolidWorks gonna make a couple small changes, then we're gonna export it again, bring it back into Shapr3D, then do some rendering, and you'll see exactly how easy that is to do inside of Shapr3D.

00:29

So first things first, let's go ahead and head back to the original file here. Right over here is the doc.kleet. This is a file we did in an earlier version or an earlier movie. In this case here, you notice there's no holes, right? So we wanna go and add those holes, but we don't wanna add them here, we wanna add them somewhere else. And this is an example of maybe working with a team of people and somebody's working on SOLIDWORKS, maybe somebody's working on AutoCAD, maybe somebody's working in Shapr3D. And you might need to send those files back and forth and maybe different people are gonna add or change features.

00:57

So in this case, let's go ahead to File, come down here to Export. Now we have a whole bunch of different options here. The first one is the Shapr3D Native Format. If you wanna just save out your files and use them somewhere else or send them to somebody, it's a great way to use that. If you wanna 3D print something, the 3D MF or the 3D manufacturing files are pretty handy. I also have the Parasolid Step files, which are your kind of most common 3D file formats. Step files happen to be kind of the most universal.

01:25

but Parasolid files happen to be a lot smaller. So in this case, we're gonna be using the Parasolid file format, click on that one and notice it's really good to bring into for like SolidWork, SolidEdge, OnShape and so on. All these different ones here can easily work with the Parasolid file. Go ahead and export that out. And right over here, I'm gonna call this the.cleat. In this case, I'm just gonna put a four in there. And notice the file format for Parasolid is x underscore t, which makes absolutely no sense

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You'd think it'd start with something like a P or some kind of para or something like that, but it doesn't. It's X underscore T, who knows? Anyways, click on Save. We've saved this out now. Now I'm gonna switch over to SOLIDWORKS in this case. So I'm gonna go over here. I already happen to have SOLIDWORKS opened up. So right over there, let's go ahead and file. Actually right over here, we're going to just open the file. It's on the desktop. Here it is, right? Desktop, there it is. Again, click on that, click on Open. It's gonna import that file.

02:21

I noticed when it does, it actually brings it in as an assembly, but we wanna open the part itself. So here's my part, and I wanna say open part.

02:30

All right, once it opens up, I do not wanna do feature recognition. I want to create a little plane. And the plane I'm gonna use from the bottom here, I'm gonna come up here to reference geometry. Come over here to plane, and I'm gonna type in five inches above there, click OK. That's what we wanna use. And right on that surface there, we wanna use the whole wizard. In this case, I'm gonna go ahead and choose a three quarter inch hex bolt hole. So you can see right over here, it's already pretty much pre-selected for us. And as far as the positions,

03:00

I want to use that plane we created and I wanna snap to the kind of the center of these bosses here. So I'm gonna snap there, I'm gonna come down here, I'm gonna snap there, click okay and let's just see how that looks. All right, pretty much exactly what I'm looking for. Just one feature, all we're gonna do here, I'm gonna hide that one. So we made the change inside of SolidWorks, now we wanna export it back out and then bring it into Shapr3D. So go up here to File, come down here to a Save As.

03:30

I don't wanna do a save as right here. Do a save as this time, I'm in my file format. I'm gonna do exactly the same thing. I'm gonna go back to that parasolid file format, right? And instead of the body, I'm gonna call this one.cleat five, right? And click on save. And now we've saved that out, right? So now we have it saved out. Let's head back over here into Shaper3D.

03:56

And there it is. So head back over here to go File, and I'm gonna say Import as New Project. All right, so now back on the desktop here, we have that deck, our.clip number five right there. Notice it happens to be just a little bit larger than the previous one. Click on Open, and that's gonna bring that directly into Shaper. Now notice we've got those new holes. So it's just that easy to export from one software, bring it back in, and now we can do whatever we want over here. So in this case,

04:24

I really like to do some rendering. So I've already modeled it. I wanna do some visualization so I can come over here and say, hey, let's add something. Let's add like some red to it, right? Let's render it. Like let's put it in an environment. Let's do something cool here. Like let's drop in some kind of like a background like that. So now we have this black environment. If you don't like that one, you can change the camera. You can change its field of view. You can do a whole bunch of things like here. You can change your aperture and your blur and all kinds of stuff. So the Shaper environment for visualization is really easy.

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And in fact, for SolidWorks or other software packages, sometimes they don't have a visualization package or maybe you don't have it in your subscription. So a lot of times you might wanna just export your file, bring it into Shapr3D and just use the visualization. So that's another great use case for the software. Once you have it done, of course, you can save out some pictures of it, you can do a whole bunch of things here, but it's really just that easy to export, import and work inside of Shapr3D, and especially if you're working on

05:21

the tablet version, for instance. Like you can quickly create something and then maybe you're gonna bring in, sit on your desktop and use a different software package to make some more adjustments and things like that and then push it back out. So a bunch of different options and just, again, just see how easy it is to work inside of the software. Thanks for watching.