Alias Preferences

This section determines which surfaces, meshes, curves, and polylines are imported.

• Surfaces - Specifies which surfaces are imported. Select one of the following:

  • Import none - No surfaces are imported.

  • Import visible - Only the visible surfaces are imported.

  • Import all - All surfaces, regardless of whether they are visible or not, are imported.

• Meshes - Specifies which meshes are imported. Select one of the following:

  • Import none - No meshes are imported.

  • Import visible - Only the visible meshes are imported.

  • Import all - All meshes, regardless of whether they are visible or not, are imported.

• Curves and Polygon Lines - Specifies which curves and polylines are imported. Select one of the following:

  • Import none - No curves and polylines are imported.

  • Import visible - Only the visible curves and polylines are imported.

  • Import all - All curves and polylines, regardless of whether they are visible or not, are imported.

This section determines what gets tessellated.

• Tessellation Quality - Sets the level of tessellation applied, with Course being the lowest tessellation and least memory intensive to High or Custom (depending on the settings) being the highest quality and most intensive.

• Chord Deviation - Sets the tolerance of the distance from the NURBS surface to the tessellated surface in mm. Lower values result in more accurate polygon models but also increase the number of triangles.

• Normal Tolerance - Sets the normal tolerance of adjacent triangles in degrees. Lower values result in more accurate polygon models but also increase the number of triangles.

• Max Chord Length - Sets the maximum length of a triangle edge in mm. Lower values result in more accurate polygon models but also increase the number of triangles.

• Enable Stitching - Enables stitching of adjacent edges.

• Stitching Tolerance - Sets the tolerance in mm where two adjacent edges are considered to be touching and where they should be stitched together.

This section determines which advanced options, like source date, normals, and unshared nodes are enabled during import.

• Keep Source Data - Sets the default behavior for keeping source data. When disabled, the source data is removed during import.

• Unify Surface Normals - Sets the default behavior for the unifying of surface normal direction. When enabled, all surface normals are unified to face the same direction (out or in) during import. When disabled, surface normals are not changed during import.

• Merge Geometries - Sets the default behavior for the merging of geometries. When enabled, all geometries are merged together during import.

• Create Groups for Layers - Sets the default behavior to create layer groups during import for items that were originally organized in layers (for example, in Autodesk Alias). Otherwise, the objects are all placed under the same parent node.

• Remove Empty Groups - Sets the default behavior to remove all empty (unnecessary) groups in your file during import.

• Unshare Nodes - Sets the default behavior for the unsharing of nodes. When enabled, nodes that are shared are no longer shared. When disabled, there is no change to shared nodes during import.

• Flush Transformation - Moves the transformation data of the scenegraph hierarchy to the vertices rather than in higher-level group nodes. In other words, if you have a hierarchy of transformation parent nodes of a geometry node, all of them are baked into one single matrix within the geometry; the original information is lost. You would want to avoid this, for example, for animating wheels on a moving car.

This section determines which file-specific options are enabled during import.

• Import Invisible Instances - Toggles the import of invisible instances on or off. Geometry is now imported when the invisible (hidden) instance option is enabled, rather than excluded.

• Import Cameras - Sets the default behavior for the import of cameras. When enabled, cameras are imported into the scene. When disabled, the cameras are removed from your file after import.

• Import Lights - Sets the default behavior for the import of lights. When enabled, lights are imported into the scene. When disabled, the lights are removed from your file after import.

• Import Variants - Sets the default behavior for the import of variants. When enabled, variants are imported into the scene. When disabled, the variants are removed from your file after import.

• Import Template Geometries - Sets the default behavior for the import of template geometries. When enabled, template geometries are imported into the scene. When disabled, the template geometries are removed from your file after import.

• Import Layer Folders - Sets the default behavior for the import of Alias layer folders. When enabled, any Alias layer folder from an older version of VRED is converted into a VRED group and layers within the folder into a subgroup as they are imported into VRED 2021.3. This changes the scene hierarchy. To disallow this behavior and keep the scene hierarchy unchanged, toggle this option off.

• Import Empty Layers - Sets the default behavior for the import of empty layers. When enabled, empty layers are import into VRED.

• Import Metadata - Sets the default behavior to import the metadata, instead of excluding it.