GiD forum

Greetings,

as written in the title I am trying to convert STL mesh to STEP file with smooth curved surfaces for further FEM simulation uses.
I used the "NURB patches" command, but everytime Gidhome would stop working and closes. The file I'm working on has 20000 facets, is this why it keeps crashing?

Thanks in advance for your input!

Geometry->Create->Geometry from mesh->NURBS patches
The conversion of mesh to smooth surfaces is a complex operation, the current implementation of GiD works only for simple cases (mechanical shapes with planes, etc.)
As you pointed it is very common that GiD crash trying this operation.
20000 are few facets, the problem is not the amount of triangles.

What you can always do is to use:
Geometry->Create->Geometry from mesh->One element to one surface
this simply create a surface by each triangle/quadrilateral, but then you can use other geometrical tools to try to enhance a little your shape an be able to re-mesh it, etc.

If do you want attach a zip of your model, to try that at least GiD not crash trying the conversion to smooth surfaces.

Hi escolano,

thanks for your reply! I attached the file, if you would take a look and give me some pointers that'd help me a lot.

In the meantime I will try your tip to convert one element to one surface and try to work from there.