Import Conversion Script Options

createnewmodel

After an autostitch is performed, this option determines what happens to the results.

edit autostitch createnewmodel true

(Default) If this option is set to true, a new model is created that contains the shells produced by the autostitching. This new model replaces the old one. This process creates a smaller number of elements in the Autodesk Showcase model (thereby increasing performance and drawing speed in the software), but some information is lost, such as existing levels of detail, tessellation settings, the names of the old entities, the model structure and so on. Note that selection in Autodesk Showcase will work on entire shells (objects) rather than the individual surfaces. This option is ideal if you are exporting each object of a model as a separate file, but less ideal if you intend on picking individual surfaces from the objects contained in a file.

edit autostitch createnewmodel false

If this option is set to false, then the results of the autostitch are used when creating a new level of detail, but otherwise the autostitch does not affect the model or its components.

preservestyleassignments

Stitches all surfaces together and then splits them by surface style (for example, by material).

edit autostitch preservestyleassignments true

(Default) If the preservestyleassignment option is true, the new model contains a single style assignment. In addition to this splitting of shells, the new model has its autostitch area populated so that any levels of detail that are created are tessellated with the original shell, not the broken up shells. In this way, the model retains its style assignments and also benefits from the autostitching.

edit autostitch createnewmodel false
edit autostitch preservestyleassignments false

If this option is false, then a single shell is created and only a single style is assigned to it. This may be useful to directly visualize the shells created by autostitching, but will not be useful for applying materials to individual parts of the model.

edit autostitch createnewmodel true
edit autostitch preservestyleassignments false

If the createnewmodel option is true but the preservestyleassignments option is turned off (false), it’s possible for a single shell created in autostitch to contain geometry which originally had different style (material) assignments. A shell in the new model only has a single style assigned to it, so there is a possibility of losing the style assignment information in this situation.

seperatelayers

Establishes if you want to separate geometry on different layers into different partitions

edit autostitch separatelayers true

(Default) If this option is set to true, objects on different layers are never stitched together.

edit autostitch separatelayers false

If this option is set to false, the layers are not considered during autostitching. Contiguous objects on different layers may be stitched together.

tolerance

Sets the tolerance (in centimeters) for when two adjacent edges are considered to be touching and thus stitched together. If a tolerance isn't specified, then an attempt is made to calculate a tolerance based on the sizes of the geometry being processed. The default tolerance used by Autostitch is based on the relative sizes of the geometry involved. If the default tolerance is too loose, you can use a tighter tolerance. A tighter tolerance will tend to stitch fewer edges to each other.

edit autostitch tolerance 0.1

create autostitch

After all the autostitch settings have been set, this command performs the autostitch on the model:

create autostitch

create unloadfile

Creates an unload file where information not required during tessellation can be stored outside of memory, thereby reducing the cache load for the tessellation process. Any unloadable entity created in the model is placed in the unload file, leaving a lightweight proxy in the model referencing it. When the model is output to an APF file, entities in the unload file are read in as needed and the unload file is closed.

create unloadfile

create tesselation settings <name>

This option provides a name (unique ID) for the set of tessellation settings that follow. Together, this group of tessellation settings creates one level of detail (for a definition, see What are LODs?).

There can be several sets of tessellation settings; the number of sets determines the number of LODs.

create tesselationsettings adaptDEFAULT

adaptive

Determines which sampling method is used. If this option does not appear in the script, the default adaptive method is used. For definitions, see What are adaptive vs. non-adaptive sampling.

edit tesselationsettings adaptDEFAULT adaptive true

(Default) If true, the adaptive method is used for tessellation sampling. (For adaptive sampling, the option can also be left out of the script.)

For a list of adaptive tesselation settings, see Adaptive tesselation options.

edit tesselationsettings veryhighNA adaptive false

If false, the non-adaptive sampling method is used.

For a list of non-adaptive tesselation settings, see Non-adaptive tesselation options.

create levelofdetail <name>

Creates a level of detail. Use this command after defining all of the tessellation settings for the level of detail you’re creating.

create levelofdetail adaptDEFAULT

chorddeviation

Absolute chord deviation, the distance from the midpoint on a tessellated edge to the NURBS geometry.

edit tesselationsettings adaptDEFAULT chorddeviation 0.02

maxchordlength

The absolute maximum chord length. That is, the maximum length of a tessellated edge.

Leave this value at 0 for the software to provide the best fit.

edit tesselationsettings adaptDEFAULT maxchordlength 0

normaltolerance

Normal deviation in degrees, the allowed normal deviation between the normals on the ends of a tessellated edge and the normals of the surface.

If this value is 0, then normals aren’t considered during tessellation.

edit tesselationsettings adaptDEFAULT normaltolerance 0

sampletype <string>

The type of sampling used. That is, the allowed deviations over the curve and surface. For more information, see More on non-adaptive sampling.

Specify one of the following:

• entiredomain - takes evenly spaced samples along the entire curve.
• g1segments - Takes samples across the entire curve, ensuring that samples are taken at G1 breaks. The sample number must be greater or equal to 2.
• perspan - Takes samples, evenly spaced between each set of edit points.

To sample knot values (where samples are taken only at the edit points along the entire curve), set numsamples to 2 and sampletype to perspan.

edit tesselationsettings high sampletype entiredomain

numsamples

Sets the number of initial samples.

edit tesselationsettings veryhighNA numsamples 16

delete splinefit

Deletes the NURBS model. By default, this option is commented out. You may wish to use this option to reduce space requirements or for security reasons (to remove the NURBS from the file to prevent their unauthorised use).

delete splinefit

output

Outputs the file in APF format using the name of the original file. The mesh representations that are created during the tessellation are unloaded to the file. When outputting to an APF file the unloaded file is closed.

output filename.apf