Data Import

Video captions: Hello and welcome to the Autodesk VRED Profession video tutorial series. This tutorial will give you an overview on how to import different file types and which file types are supported by VRED. First, we start by loading an example file into VRED. Therefore, you can go to the main menu bar and select the Import command, under the File menu. Now, you can see a new window appears and we are able to navigate to the file we want to import. But, before we open our file, let's take a quick look at all the available exchange formats. In the lower right corner, we have a range of all the supported file formats.

As you see, VRED supports all major file formats in large areas of 3D and CAD. We're able to load construction files, like CATIA version 4 and 5, Autodesk Alias WIRE files, and SolidWorks data, but also exchanges formats like FBX, OBJ, and Maya data. We recommend using the FBX format because it offers additional possibilities to import animation and camera data from different software tools like Maya or 3D Max.

Now, I select my IGES files and confirm it with the Open button. The Import Files dialog appears, where you can define how Autodesk VRED should convert or process the data. VRED offers settings for determining how the file data is tessellated. We have options like Chord Deviation, Normal Tolerance, Max Chord Length, and Stitching Tolerance.

The chord deviation is the distance of the midpoint of a tessellated edge to the geometry. The normal tolerance is the allowed normal deviation between the normals on the ends of the tessellated edge. The max chord length is the maximum length of a tessellated edge.

Merge Geometries allows the merging of the geometry that is to be imported. The Enable Stitching option enables the stitching of adjacent edges. The Stitching Tolerance sets the tolerance where to adjacent edges are considered to be touching and where they should be stitched together. I use the default settings and confirm with the Import button.