Thursday September 5, 2013 at 4:00pm
When importing large STL files in to SolidWorks you may come across this error.
This is due to a polygon limit on the SolidWorks STL import utility. Files with more than 20000 polygons cannot be imported as a surface or solid, and only a graphical body, not much use!
Thankfully we can import larger STLs in to SolidWorks, albeit in a slightly different file format.
Meshlab (
http://meshlab.sourceforge.net/) is a free piece of software that allows the opening and editing of STL files, regardless on polygon numbers. This lets us view the STL file in all it's glory!
From there we can save the file out to a 3D dxf file, which has no such limitation on import in to SolidWorks. Meaning we can turn any STL file in to a solid or surface body in SolidWorks!
Cheers
Stephen White
Applications Engineer