Hi Priscilla,

Any chance you can share an example that demonstrates the issue with us for troubleshooting?
Take care,

David

Dear David,

Thank you for responding, here is the snap of what I get up on importing CAD objects, despite the difference on Z coordinates the objects appears as they are on the same location.

Hi Priscilla,

I’m not sure I really understand the problem. Are you saying that when you change the Z Position of one of the CAD Part, this part isn’t actually moving in the Shaded Model? This shouldn’t be the case though.

I know it can be tricky to position CAD objects accurately if their reference coordinate system isn’t known. Let me show you an example and you tell me if it rings a bell.

I have used solidworks to create a dummy cylinder STEP file that I imported in OpticStudio with X = Y = Z = 0.0 mm. Here is what it looks like:

So far, so good. Now, let me add a Sphere to my Non-Sequential Component Editor with the same coordinates (X = Y = Z = 0.0 mm). Here is the result:

As you can see, despite these two objects having the same X, Y, and Z Positions, they are not located in the same place. The key is in how I generated the STEP file, but before I go into more details, let’s just try the following:

1. I’ll remove the Sphere
2. Double-click on my CAD cylinder in the Non-Sequential Component Editor
3. Go to the Draw tab, and press Draw Local Axis
4. Open a 3D Layout

Here is the result:

At the top-right of the cylinder, you see the local axis appeared in orange. This is the actual location X = Y = Z = 0.0 mm. It is outside of the cylinder! This is because OpticStudio continues to use the same reference axis that was used to generate the object in your CAD software.

In my example, in Solidworks, I can click Origin in the Part tree, and the origin shows as a blue dot at the bottom-left of the cylinder:

In order to properly place your objects, you need to know where that origin is in your CAD files otherwise it gets quite complicated. Does that make sense? Is that the issue you are having?

Take care,

David

Hello David,

Thank you so much for your prompt response; I was confused by the concept of coordinates in the origin file. The information you provided is extremely useful.

Priscilla