Hexagon - modelling for manufacture?

RevelationMD

Hi all,

I have an old version of hexagon but haven't kept up with updates or even launched it for years. Now, I've had a project come up that I'm wondering whether this is the program to use to complete it, in which case I'll upgrade.

I'm looking for a modeller for creating small moulds so the questions that come to mind are:

1) Does anyone know if I can export from Hexagon to IGIS or STEP format (or NURBS?) for manufacture? If anyone has any experience of using this program for this use how do you export? Ideally I would like to be able to export from Hexagon and then import to a 'more engineery' type program like Solidworks or ProE.

2) The items I want to model are small but fairly detailed / decorative - is Hexagon still ''shakey'' when the polygon count gets high? (Maybe this was the comp I was using back when I last launched Hexagon - dunno).

Thanks in advance.

cdordoni

Hexagon is polygonal modeling only.

If you have good geometry, or run your file through an STL checker like Netfabb, it is possible to get a file from Hex that will import into SolidWorks as a solid body. Unfortunately the poly count is very limited for facetted solid bodies (like 20,000 triangles in SolidWorks for example)

This is also typically frowned on in the industry as many machine shops will say they cannot CNC mill a facetted (triangulated) model even when it has been imported into SolidWorks or ProE. What they are really saying is that they do not have the appropriate software or CAM system to run a toolpath on it.

Usually shops with CNC routers can handle triangulated files because their CAM software is set up to handle it.

If you know where you are going to have file machined and they can handle a facetted file (ie. STL) you could use Hexagon. Otherwise stick with Nurbs for general compatibility. FreeCAD can produce Nurbs files.

RevelationMD

Thanks - that's perfect!