At 09:24 PM 6/9/98 -0500, you wrote:
>Dear rp-ml:
>
>What is a .sfx file and can it be converted to .stl format?
>
>Thanks,
>
>Glenn Whiteside
>Cessna Aircraft Co.
>e-mail: siderwhite@worldnet.att.net
Dear rp-ml:
The sfx file format is a proprietary format developed by
Solid Concepts. sfx files can be read by free SolidPlayer
software which is available from our web site:
While designed more for communication than rapid prototyping,
sfx files have significant advantages over stl files in that they
can contain multiple objects and they are much more compact
than stl files.
Currently, only SolidView can convert an sfx file to stl. We recently
added the ability to print in SolidPlayer, and we are considering
(no promises yet!) adding the ability to export stl files from an
sfx file in SolidPlayer. This means that while someone would still
need SolidView ($495) in order to create the sfx file, anyone could
download and use SolidPlayer to convert an object in the sfx file to
an stl file.
To give you an idea of the difference, here are the file sizes for
the brain gear in three formats:
Format File size Reduction
Binary stl 3,365,584 0%
zipped stl 1,363,413 59%
sfx 1,035,056 69%
Compressed sfx 498,684 85%
(The compressed sfx format was a new feature added to SolidView 2.1.)
Please email me directly at tom@solidconcepts.com if you have any
thoughts on the usefulness of this.
Regards,
Tom
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