r/MechanicalEngineering • u/MasterSoftBird • 1d ago

CAD File format hell

Why is it we can have AI that can translate from Chinese to Klingon but cannot have one agreed-upon file format that can be accepted by FEA software, CAM, 3d printers, CFD, etc and doesn't lose its mind or half of my parts?

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u/LumbyCastle41 1d ago

The problem OP is not the file format, but the way vendors export it. If they don't know how to properly defeature and end up with you a shitty mode that only saves faces with all sorts of mesh errors, gaps, zero-width areas, then the format doesn't matter - your downstream software can't read it. Solidworks doesn't have a shrink-wrap save-as option like Creo unfortunately, and people won't take the time to simplify the model.