About the CAD Translation Case Studies

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Introducing the Case Studies Requirements for the CAD Translation Case Studies About Specialized CAD Terms

Introducing the Case Studies

These case studies illustrate converting computer-aided design (CAD) assemblies, through SimMechanics Link export, into SimMechanics models. Each study presents an example or set of examples based on a specific machine type represented in CAD. The SimMechanics models in each study are generated with default settings.

• Translating a CAD Part into a Body presents the simplest case, translating an assembly with a single part or body.

• Translating CAD Constraints into Joints describes how you translate assemblies with constrained parts into bodies with degrees of freedom represented by SimMechanics Bodies and Joints.

• Updating and Retranslating a CAD Pendulum presents an example of translating a CAD assembly into a SimMechanics model, modifying the original assembly in several ways, then retranslating it into several updated models.

• Translating a CAD Robot Arm illustrates the translation of an assembly representing a simple mechanism, including subassembly-subsystem hierarchy. This study also introduces post-translation additions to the model.

• Translating a CAD Stewart Platform presents the translation of a moderately complex assembly with many degrees of freedom, subassembly-subsystem hierarchy, and visualization of its motion.

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Requirements for the CAD Translation Case Studies

The following assembly and exporting examples require a CAD platform supported by the SimMechanics Link utility. To complete all the steps, you also need SimMechanics Link and SimMechanics software.

The demo CAD files are under $matlabroot/toolbox/physmod/smlink/smlinkdemos/, in the subfolder appropriate to your supported CAD platform. The file extensions of these files are specific to each CAD platform.

The assembly, geometric, kinematic, and part details differ from platform to platform. In SolidWorks, constraints on CAD parts are called mates.

For More About CAD Assembly Export

For information about mechanical export from external applications, see the SimMechanics Link documentation.

For More About Mechanical Import and Model Generation

For an overview of import and model generation procedures and concepts, see Importing Mechanical Models.

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About Specialized CAD Terms

The glossary in the SimMechanics Reference defines CAD terms. They include:

• assembly

• constraints

• coordinate systems

• degrees of freedom

• fixed part

• fundamental root

• ground

• part

• root body

• subassembly and subassembly root

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Computer-Aided Design Translation

Translating a CAD Part into a Body

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