@Amy Entin 

I’m not sure I understand your issue, it might help if you detail how you perform the export.

Based on what I understand of your question, I think you could achieve what you want with a ZPL macro or the ZOSAPI, but I’ll show the macro here.

# Number of Objects in the NDE
number_of_objects = NOBJ(1)

# Static parameters of EXPORTCAD (more details in Help File)
VEC1(1) = 1 # STEP file format

# Loop over the objects
FOR object_id, 1, number_of_objects, 1
    # Extract current object comment
    temp = NPRO(1, object_id, 1, 0)
    comment$ = $BUFFER()
    
    # Create a file name based on the object comment
    step_file_name$ = "D:\" + comment$ + ".STP"
    
    # Adjust the first and last objects of EXPORTCAD (more details in the Help File)
    VEC1(3) = object_id
    VEC1(4) = object_id
    
    # Export a CAD of the current object
    EXPORTCAD step_file_name$
NEXT

Hopefully the code is self-explanatory. Note this method of extracting the non-sequential comments:

This is the result:

I hope this helps.

Take care,

David

@Amy Entin

 

I’m not sure I understand your issue, it might help if you detail how you perform the export.

Based on what I understand of your question, I think you could achieve what you want with a ZPL macro or the ZOSAPI, but I’ll show the macro here.

 

# Number of Objects in the NDE
number_of_objects = NOBJ(1)

# Static parameters of EXPORTCAD (more details in Help File)
VEC1(1) = 1 # STEP file format

# Loop over the objects
FOR object_id, 1, number_of_objects, 1
    # Extract current object comment
    temp = NPRO(1, object_id, 1, 0)
    comment$ = $BUFFER()
    
    # Create a file name based on the object comment
    step_file_name$ = "D:\" + comment$ + ".STP"
    
    # Adjust the first and last objects of EXPORTCAD (more details in the Help File)
    VEC1(3) = object_id
    VEC1(4) = object_id
    
    # Export a CAD of the current object
    EXPORTCAD step_file_name$
NEXT

 

Hopefully the code is self-explanatory. Note this method of extracting the non-sequential comments:

This is the result:

I hope this helps.

Take care,

David

Hi, 

Thank you for the response, but unfortunately not what I meant. I have a system file with multiple objects, and I export the entire system as a single CAD for the mechanics team to build around. The question is whether there is a way to export the system along with object labels in a single STP file...

@Amy Entin 

Unfortunately, I don’t think OpticStudio (OS) can do that. It seems like you could do it programmatically by modifying the STEP file itself, but I’m not familiar with the syntax of STEP files.

For your reference this is what I tested:

• Exported a single STEP file from OS containing two Sphere object
• Opened the STEP file with FreeCAD and renamed both object (bodies) as SPHERE1 and SPHERE2 respectively

• Saved the modified STEP file
• Opened the modified STEP file with Notepad++ and searched for occurrences of SPHERE1

This is why I think it should be possible, but would require knowledge of the STEP syntax. Since the object seem to appear in the STEP file in the same order as in the NDE, you could use a script to parse the comments of the NDE and add those PRODUCT entities to the step file somehow.

Sorry I cannot help further and take care,

David