Should I send STEP or IGES?
STEP, unless the person receiving the file asks for IGES. STEP keeps the solid as a solid, while IGES keeps its faces and leaves the other program to join them. When both are accepted, STEP is the safer file.
SLDPRT to IGES
Convert a SOLIDWORKS part (.sldprt) to IGES, free and with no account, for the CAD, CAM and CNC software that still asks for it. It runs in your browser, so the part never leaves your computer, and the IGES is checked against the original solid before you can download it.
Your file never leaves your computer: the conversion runs in your browser.
IGES is older than STEP and less tidy: it describes a part's surfaces rather than its solid, and the program reading it has to stitch them back together. Most current software prefers STEP. IGES is still the format some machine controllers, older CAM packages and customers' purchasing systems insist on, and when one does, IGES is the file to send.
IGES version 5.3, with the part written as trimmed surfaces, in millimetres: the IGES form most CAD and CAM systems read. The faces are written exactly as they were modelled. As with STEP, the feature tree, colours and annotations stay in the SLDPRT.
The converter reads its own IGES back, sews the surfaces into a solid itself, closing gaps of up to 0.1 mm, and compares volume, surface area and size with the solid read from your SLDPRT: one part in a million on volume and area, 0.001 mm on size. A file whose surfaces do not close back into the same solid is not offered. That is the converter's own sewing: another CAD system may sew at a tighter tolerance and leave faces apart.
Credits and licences for the projects the converter is built on are on the converter page.
STEP, unless the person receiving the file asks for IGES. STEP keeps the solid as a solid, while IGES keeps its faces and leaves the other program to join them. When both are accepted, STEP is the safer file.
No. Like STEP, IGES carries the finished geometry only. Sketches, features and history stay in the SLDPRT.
IGES 5.3, with the part written as trimmed surfaces, in millimetres. That is the IGES form most CAD and CAM systems read.
Lasertally is Windows software for fabrication shops. It opens STEP, IGES, DXF and NC1 files, measures the pierces, cut length and bends off the geometry, and prices the part on your own rate card.