Pro/ENGINEER Render Format files can be imported into Alias. The translator converts the triangle data of the Pro/ENGINEER Render format into Alias meshes. It is important that the Pro/ENGINEER designer assign each part of an assembly a different color, so that each part will become a separate mesh in Alias. The colors are also translated into simple Alias shaders and these shaders are assigned to the appropriate objects.

Group

Determines how files stored in the Pro/ENGINEER Render file format are retrieved. When ON, objects are retrieved as a single group for easier manipulation.

Input Units

If the units of the Pro/ENGINEER Render coordinate data is known, it can be set using one of the options in this popup menu so that the data is properly converted to the linear units set in Alias. The default is INCHES.

Scale Factor

Changes the size of models stored in the Pro/ENGINEER Render file format as you retrieve the file.

Keep Normals

Vertex normals in Pro/ENGINEER Render files all point towards the inside of objects. For rendering purposes in Alias, these normals must point towards the outside of objects. Consequently, the translator flips all vertex normals during the translation.

The vertex normals of meshes are usually recalculated by the Alias renderer before it renders meshes. By default, the normals assigned to vertices in the Pro/ENGINEER Render file are “frozen” so that they are used by the renderer rather than discarded and recalculated. This allows the renderer to produce a better quality rendering.

To suppress this behavior, set Keep Normals OFF so that the renderer will discard the Pro/ENGINEER assigned normals and recalculate them.

Best Practice

If vertex normals are retrieved, they are considered “frozen” and they cannot be changed, so vertex level editing, such as moving one vertex in relation to its neighbors, may invalidate the vertex normal since it will not be updated, and subsequent renderings will not be correct.

Note

Object level editing, such as translation, rotation, and proportional scaling are still valid operations on frozen normals.

Merge Vertices

By default, the translator may merge the vertices of triangles along apparent shared edges. If two vertices have the same x,y,z position within a tolerance and have the same normal within angular tolerance, they are merged into one vertex. This allows Alias to do smooth shading across the edges. If two vertices have the same x,y,z position, but have different normals, then these vertices are not merged to maintain the hard edge.

If set to OFF, no vertex merging occurs and all edges are rendered “hard”.

If set to ON, the POSITION/NORMAL menu becomes available.

Position/Normal

Determines how vertices and normals are merged.

List Item	Description
POSITION + NORMAL	vertices and normals are merged based on their x, y, z position.
POSITION	vertices only are merged based on their x, y, z position. Normals are not merged.

Position Tol. (units)

The tolerance used for comparing vertex positions can be specified using the Input Units option selected. The value specified is in the same units as the data. For example, if you specified 0.01 MILLIMETERS from the Input Units menu, the tolerance for comparing vertex positions is 0.01 millimeters.

Note

If you change the units from the default inches, then the default tolerance of 0.0001 may have to be changed to make sense for the units specified.

Normal Tol. (degrees)

The tolerance used for normal comparisons can be specified in degrees and is the angle between the normals of two vertices. The default is that two vertices will be merged if their positions are equal within tolerance and the angle between the normals is less than 1 degree.