thopiekar

@dxp Any success?

Did you get help already? When talking about "new Cura's version", do you mean 3.2? Oh, and sadly your link does not work for me.

Got it! Works now on my side. The issue was that I copied months before some articles from Autodesk websites, which are describing their API. What you can see on Windows as a quotation mark (which is fine for Python programming), can be also a "0x93" byte, which made the plugin crash. Good that I had Ubuntu installed on Windows, so I was able to look for the file, which contains the byte: Updated the plugin file again, but now it should work. PS: At least it opens part, assemblies and drawings using Inventor 2019 Beta2 now.

After uninstalling and reinstalling Inventor, as suggested by Autodesk during their beta program, something got broken. Can't test my own changes, but, in theory, the new package under the same URL should work now. PS: Btw, this is what I get here:

Yes, you are and looks like you are already a good one

Ah, damn. I need to update the plugin because of some changes I made in the SolidWorks plugin. I added some features to a common application module and it looks like the Inventor plugin does not get these changes.

Just reserving here this thread for questions between users, who are using the plugin. Additionally, feel free to add ideas for improvements, which are important for you as issues to the project page. Looking forward to stimulating and inspiring ideas! Thanks! Website: https://thopiekar.eu/cura/cad/inventor/ -------------------------------------- Special thanks go to: @dxp for testing the plugin in its early stages! ---------------------------------------

Oops, copy pasted the SWX link and modified it (only the text) Ok, I will open a separate thread for it soon. Oh, and greetings from the eDrawings side.. PS: @dxp Remove your current log file of Cura, start Cura and retry. Upload the log file here: and let's continue talking about the Autodesk plugin there.

It is already there and also waiting for Ultimaker to get distributed: Testing version: https://thopiekar.eu/download/CuraInventorPlugin-0.1.3.curaplugin PS: It is a very basic plugin at the moment and does not provide any UI. Just open your files, eg. via drag and drop.

@dxp Again, thank you for the hint. I downloaded the eDrawings viewer and found on the internet 3DS' SDK with some examples written in VBA and C/C++. My first impression is that it seems to be doable, but I have currently still other CAD plugins, which are waiting to be distributed in Cura's plugin browser. If @kmanstudios and you think such a solution needs to be investigated soon. Then shout it out in a separate thread and collect a list of users, who don't own a license for SolidWorks, but would like to open these files. So I can prioritize it for myself a little bit better. And at this point, I would like to continue talking about the current approach, which is the SolidWorks plugin. But still, thanks again for the hints and thoughts so far!

Many thanks! I thought it is only for eDrawings files, but the website mentions also SolidWorks files. I will take a look onto it!

Alright Haha, but this is the target group of people I'm pointing at when working on this plugin. Just aiming to keep it as simple as possible. Even not mentioning that we are doing anything like an export in the background. Only telling the user that we are going to open his file and done. Btw. you could tell your customers to use the plugin to create Cura project files, so you would get the converted files within the project file, which is actually a 3MF file and therefore includes the STL info. If you ask kindly I can add making a guide for this to my todo list.

I can compare it with an OS. When thinking of the architecture of software and hardware, an OS is just closer to the hardware, but it does not change the fact that it is still software. You can't convince me of this. Because the content of an OBJ file is known. SolidWorks keeps their "intelligence" inside their files close. That is the issue, not that you have to pay for SolidWorks. Although, 3DS could provide you a file reader like Adobe Acrobat.. Thanks! I understand, but the solution for the current situation is only a paid version of the plugin, where I could compensate the costs. But I don't see at the moment an audience, which is willing to pay for a software solution like that. Therefore no ground for this feature to grow.

Well, I guess the problems where known and they just took the wrong words. Happens often, I guess. No doubt, but at the moment they are the only ones, who are showing interests in my projects and are willing to help. This is realistically seen the case at the moment. The plugin is a free software solution! It just requires SolidWorks to be installed. If you really have the opinion that the plugin is not for free because it depends on SolidWorks. Furthermore tell me then how can be other Windows software be "freeware", when Windows itself is not for free? The image I have currently in my mind does not make sense. I hope I understood your point in the last paragraph correctly..

Might be your opinion, but Autodesk gave me the possibility to get into their Beta program for Autodesk Inventor, because the Inventor plugin (which is still unreleased) is opensource. So, yes, for opensource interests you get from Autodesk software for free whereas 3DS gives a damn and does not call back on license requests. There are even more details I could tell and share, but this is not the right place.

Well, shouldn't be too difficult, if I would have a Webserver in Windows and SolidWorks 2018 installed. So the plugin could use a web interface to convert the files externally. However, I have neither the capacities nor a recent SolidWorks licence, so therefore don't expect any solutions for this in the short term. And 3DS is not the right person, when it comes to free software solutions. Autodesk is there a more helpful partner so far.

Version 0.5.0 (unreleased) available for testing: https://thopiekar.eu/download/CuraSolidWorksPlugin-0.5.0.curaplugin .. and a small guide how to install the plugin using this file: https://thopiekar.eu/cad-integration/solidworks-plugin/installation/#manual-install Finally, more about the new features: https://thopiekar.eu/cad-integration/solidworks-plugin/

Hey @AbeFM, thank you for the mail you wrote. You observed the code very well, what you see is a work in process in getting own values applied. But there were many bugs I had to fix and there is currently an updated version of the plugin, which waits for weeks to be distributed by Ultimaker. This page is summarizing and showing what you can expect in version 0.5.0: https://thopiekar.eu/solidworks-plugin/ For all the plugin discussions I would suggest to use one thread because it is rather quiet about the plugin in the community at the moment.

You can find 0.4.4 in my personal archive. The plugin is currently nowhere released and/or documented. LINK REMOVED PS: 0.4.4 now released.

Hey @XYZDesignPro, don't want to make early promises, but found a solution for my bug here and I guess it will fix your issue, too. Will create a .curaplugin package soon. Could you be so kind and give it a try? To answer your question: This will come soon. With 0.5.x there will be "3D printing" profiles. What do you think about these parameters? - https://github.com/thopiekar/CuraSolidWorksPlugin/blob/0.5/SolidWorksReader.py#L467 Hope it is not too difficult to read the values out of the source code. Depending how difficult it is to design the UI, I can add "Custom" settings, too. Actually I'm doing this when using my "3D printing" profiles.

Hey guys, could you please confirm that 0.4.3.1 is working? I noticed a strange bug in this version. - Thanks!

Hey @XYZDesignPro, sorry for the late reply, but I get only daily notifications via email over new posts. First of all, please excuse the issues you have. Before you begin, please close Cura. 1. Could you be so kind and send me your log file? Since you are using Cura for work, you can also write me a mail with the log file attached. Just in case sensitive info is included. 2. Also go into the plugins directory (AppData/Roaming/cura/3.0/plugins) and look for the SolidWorks plugin. Make a zip of it and also try to attach it to a mail. If your upload is limited, just let me know. I can make some space free on my NAS. It will be useful for me to understand what happened. 3. After zipping the contents, remove the plugin from this directory and start Cura again. Just repeat the instructions how to install the plugin using the .curaplugin file. If it still does not work, please send another log file. Regards - Thomas (PS: Sent you a PM with my email address.)

Under https://github.com/thopiekar/CuraSolidWorksPlugin/releases download the latest .curaplugin file. In Cura go to Preferences > Configure Cura ... and in the following window under "Plugins" there is a "Install new plugin" button. With this one it shall be possible to install and update any plugin. If it does not work, just let me know

Last update for today. - 0.4.2 released! Includes: * UI fixes for display scaling * Drawing support (only one part or assembly is allowed to be inside this drawing)

And another one.. 0.4.1! Just forgot to check something after rewriting many lines of code. https://github.com/thopiekar/CuraSolidWorksPlugin/releases/tag/0.4.1 Have fun!