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Modeling: Exporting designs#

After creating a design, you typically want to bring it into a CAD tool for further development. This notebook demonstrates how to export a design to the various supported CAD formats.

Create a design#

The code creates a simple design for demonstration purposes. The design consists of a set of rectangular pads with a circular hole in the center.

[1]:

from ansys.geometry.core import launch_modeler
from ansys.geometry.core.math import UNITVECTOR3D_X, UNITVECTOR3D_Y, Point2D
from ansys.geometry.core.sketch import Sketch

# Instantiate the modeler
modeler = launch_modeler()

# Create a design
design = modeler.create_design("ExportDesignExample")

# Create a sketch
sketch = Sketch()

# Create a simple rectangle
sketch.box(Point2D([0, 0]), 10, 5)

# Extrude the sketch and displace the resulting body
# to make a plane of rectangles
for x_step in [-60, -45, -30, -15, 0, 15, 30, 45, 60]:
    for y_step in [-40, -30, -20, -10, 0, 10, 20, 30, 40]:
        # Extrude the sketch
        body = design.extrude_sketch(f"Body_X_{x_step}_Y_{y_step}", sketch, 5)

        # Displace the body in the x and y directions
        body.translate(UNITVECTOR3D_X, x_step)
        body.translate(UNITVECTOR3D_Y, y_step)

# Plot the design
design.plot()

Export the design#

You can export the design to various CAD formats. For the formats supported see the DesignFileFormat class, which is part of the the design module documentation.

Nonetheless, there are a set of convenience methods that you can use to export the design to the supported formats. The following code snippets demonstrate how to do it. You can decide whether to export the design to a file in a certain directory or in the current working directory.

Export to a file in the current working directory#

[2]:

# Export the design to a file in the current working directory
file_location = design.export_to_scdocx()
print(f"Design exported to {file_location}")

Design exported to /home/runner/work/pyansys-geometry/pyansys-geometry/doc/source/examples/03_modeling/ExportDesignExample.scdocx

Export to a file in a certain directory#

[3]:

from pathlib import Path

# Define a downloads directory
download_dir = Path.cwd() / "downloads"

# Export the design to a file in a certain directory
file_location = design.export_to_scdocx(download_dir)
print(f"Design exported to {file_location}")

Design exported to /home/runner/work/pyansys-geometry/pyansys-geometry/doc/source/examples/03_modeling/downloads/ExportDesignExample.scdocx

Export to SCDOCX format#

[4]:

# Export the design to a file in the requested directory
file_location = design.export_to_scdocx(download_dir)

# Print the file location
print(f"Design exported to {file_location}")
print(f"Does the file exist? {Path(file_location).exists()}")

Design exported to /home/runner/work/pyansys-geometry/pyansys-geometry/doc/source/examples/03_modeling/downloads/ExportDesignExample.scdocx
Does the file exist? True

Export to Parasolid text format#

[5]:

# Export the design to a file in the requested directory
file_location = design.export_to_parasolid_text(download_dir)

# Print the file location
print(f"Design exported to {file_location}")
print(f"Does the file exist? {Path(file_location).exists()}")

Design exported to /home/runner/work/pyansys-geometry/pyansys-geometry/doc/source/examples/03_modeling/downloads/ExportDesignExample.x_t
Does the file exist? True

Export to Parasolid binary format#

[6]:

# Export the design to a file in the requested directory
file_location = design.export_to_parasolid_bin(download_dir)

# Print the file location
print(f"Design exported to {file_location}")
print(f"Does the file exist? {Path(file_location).exists()}")

Design exported to /home/runner/work/pyansys-geometry/pyansys-geometry/doc/source/examples/03_modeling/downloads/ExportDesignExample.x_b
Does the file exist? True

Export to STEP format#

# Export the design to a file in the requested directory
file_location = design.export_to_step(download_dir)

# Print the file location
print(f"Design exported to {file_location}")
print(f"Does the file exist? {Path(file_location).exists()}")

Export to IGES format#

# Export the design to a file in the requested directory
file_location = design.export_to_iges(download_dir)

# Print the file location
print(f"Design exported to {file_location}")
print(f"Does the file exist? {Path(file_location).exists()}")

Export to FMD format#

[7]:

# Export the design to a file in the requested directory
file_location = design.export_to_fmd(download_dir)

# Print the file location
print(f"Design exported to {file_location}")
print(f"Does the file exist? {Path(file_location).exists()}")

Design exported to /home/runner/work/pyansys-geometry/pyansys-geometry/doc/source/examples/03_modeling/downloads/ExportDesignExample.fmd
Does the file exist? True

Export to PMDB format#

# Export the design to a file in the requested directory
file_location = design.export_to_pmdb(download_dir)

Export to Discovery format#

[8]:

# Export the design to a file in the requested directory
file_location = design.export_to_disco(download_dir)

# Print the file location
print(f"Design exported to {file_location}")
print(f"Does the file exist? {Path(file_location).exists()}")

Design exported to /home/runner/work/pyansys-geometry/pyansys-geometry/doc/source/examples/03_modeling/downloads/ExportDesignExample.dsco
Does the file exist? True

Export to USD format#

The design tessellation can be exported to a Universal Scene Description (USD) file. USD is a widely adopted open format for 3D scenes used in visual effects, gaming, and engineering workflows (e.g. NVIDIA Omniverse, Apple RealityKit).

The export tessellates all bodies in the design, preserves the full component/body hierarchy as USD prims, and writes per-body color as a UsdPreviewSurface material.

This feature requires the optional usd-core package:

pip install ansys-geometry-core[usd]

Once installed, call export_to_usd() on any active design. The default format is USD ASCII (usda), which is human-readable and useful for debugging:

from pathlib import Path

download_dir = Path.cwd() / "downloads"

# Export to USD ASCII format (default)
file_location = design.export_to_usd(download_dir)
print(f"Design exported to {file_location}")

You can choose the USD format via the file_format parameter:

# USD binary crate format (compact, faster to load)
file_location = design.export_to_usd(download_dir, file_format="usdc")

# USD zip archive (self-contained, ideal for sharing)
file_location = design.export_to_usd(download_dir, file_format="usdz")

To control tessellation quality, pass a TessellationOptions object:

from ansys.geometry.core.misc.options import TessellationOptions
from ansys.geometry.core.misc.measurements import Distance, Angle
from pint import Quantity

# Fine tessellation: small surface deviation, tight angle tolerance
tess_options = TessellationOptions(
    surface_deviation=Distance(Quantity(0.001, "m")),
    angle_deviation=Angle(Quantity(0.1, "rad")),
)

file_location = design.export_to_usd(download_dir, tess_options=tess_options)
print(f"Design exported to {file_location}")

The resulting USD file preserves the full component/body hierarchy. For a design named MyDesign with one component and two bodies it looks like:

/MyDesign                         # root Xform (default prim)
  /MyComponent                    # Xform per component
    /Body1                        # Mesh prim (triangulated geometry)
    /Body2                        # Mesh prim (triangulated geometry)
    /Looks
      /Body1_mat                  # UsdPreviewSurface material (body color)
      /Body2_mat                  # UsdPreviewSurface material (body color)

Export to HTML format#

The design can be exported directly to a self-contained HTML viewer using ansys-tools-visualization-interface. The resulting HTML page embeds all geometry as a GLB file and renders it with Three.js — only a CDN connection is required to view it in any modern browser. No intermediate USD file is written to disk.

This feature requires the usd optional extra, which bundles ansys-tools-visualization-interface[usd]:

pip install ansys-geometry-core[html]

Once installed, call export_to_html() on any active design:

from pathlib import Path

download_dir = Path.cwd() / "downloads"

html_path = design.export_to_html(download_dir)
print(f"HTML viewer written to: {html_path}")

The generated HTML file is fully self-contained — copy it anywhere and open it without a server:

import webbrowser

webbrowser.open(html_path.as_uri())

Close the modeler#

Close the modeler after exporting the design.

[9]:

# Close the modeler
modeler.close()

Download this example

Download this example as a Jupyter Notebook or as a Python script.