ABOUT.txt

NOTE: THIS IS THE SAME TEXT AS APPEARS IN THE MACRO UI 'ABOUT'.

This macro is an extension of one made available to the public at
http://sites.google.com/site/karpena/solidworks by karpena@gmail. 
This software is free for use but is NOT be sold as is, nor in modified form, nor incorporated in
other software for sale. Version 2.0 is by virtualdesignsnz@gmail and was released 1/4/2012. It
should work properly with SW2005 and up. No support is provided and it is distributed without any
warranty. Be sure to have a backup of your data before using.

This macro will export meshes in .obj format from SolidWorks parts and assemblies along with
materials' details in a .mtl file. Display States, sketch pictures and decals are not considered
and the components must be set to resolved. SW Appearances, previously known as Colours/Textures,
(but not PW or PV360 materials) that are applied to faces, features, bodies, parts and components
in the active configuration are considered. The macro wil traverse an assembly and subassys to
get the correct config of all components. Use SW 'propogate visual properties' for patterns. In
some cases SW materials may not export as expected and should be tuned in another application
prior to rendering. If your model's configurations are complex or the tessellation is fine
exporting could take some minutes.

The SW materials have been interpreted to give useful output for Blender and Octane import.
Octane glossy is assumed, but diffuse can be flagged in SW by zero spec. Octane specular is set
from transparency > zero. Textures need to be actual mapped textures not Realview effects. Where
textures are found the material is exported as white diffuse + Kd texture. Unless it is disabled
the name of the texture is used in the .mtl and the images are copied to the output directory.
If model items have the same material applied they will be included in the same mesh group so if
access to a region is required later be sure to give that a different material.

Set the tessellation options to suit the model. Finer settings give better fidelity but more
faces. Smaller parts like screws need a small max chord deviation to capture sufficient detail.
Try 1/10 min dia. When scale is applied it also compensates the tess settings so that the face
fidelity is the same. See the README for more details...