STL Importer

[wmocahbee]

Its absolutely garbage. Does not work on my clients files. FreeCad opens their files, etc. Purchased it and used it for the first time a week ago. Could not get one STL file to import. Do NOT waste your money on this garbage. Sketch it opens their files. I am not a novice, I am a seasoned user. Every STL file I have ever tried to import crashes. I have tried to do this on 4 machines and the same results. Just a warning to those that are looking to buy. Dont......

[oscarl48]

That is odd. I use the STL importer extensively and have had very few issues (its the only add-on I use). I create 3d models which I then convert to STLs for my patterns.

Are the STL object meshes completely closed or do they have holes (broken mesh)? That has been my issue the few times I have had problems but simply went back and fixed the meshes. They worked fine after that.

You can post an example or PM me and I can see if I can help with the stl object.

Oscar

[fwharris]

Post one of your STL files to see what happens with others.

[wmocahbee]

Thats what I thought Oscar. Now...what is strange, is that their DXF files work perfectly. I have opened other STL files, just as long as they are not very large. I have a i7 16GB ram, 1TB SSD hard drive in this computer. This computer is strictly my carving computer. One of the STL files is 386 MB big. So I dont know if there is a limit on that. But if they send it in DXF, it opens.

[wmocahbee]

There is no holes. "broken mesh's" The STL opens EVERYWHERE but Carvewright. I even had them send a simple SPHERE circle. It says the same thing as pic I sent. corrupted etc.

[oscarl48]

I have had issues opening up very large stl files. But for me the CW software would crash instead of saying corrupt file. Different behavior for me. Okay so no help. I've learned to keep my stl files below 200MB now to reduce that behavior.

On a large file I will reduce the vert count on the mesh to reduce the size of the file if needed. I also reduce the number of patterns in my library since it likes to load all of them onto memory.

Good luck.

[blantz]

I have had the invalid or corrupted file when opening stl files.

I was able to fix the file by opening it in autodesk and saving it as a stl file . I was then able to import into carvewright no issues. .

[bergerud]

When I have issues like this, I import the stl into Meshlab (free) and re-export it.

[Alan Malmstrom]

When I have an stl that won't open in stl importer I open it up in blender and export it as an stl and then in works.

[fwharris]

I have needed to do the same as far as opening the stl in another program before it would load into designer. Also re sizing it in the other program. Some of these stl file model sizes are dimensionally way outside the limits of the machine and do need to be resized. Doing so will then decrease the file size and make it easier to import into designer.

Oscar also brings up a good point of the over all number and size of patterns in your pattern list.