How to Export SolidWorks file to use in WebGL?

Question

Is there a way to export or convert a SolidWorks file to be used in any way for WebGL?

Answer 1

Not sure where you want to go with this, but http://showwebgl.com/ (see http://plopbyte.net/2011/04/showwebgl/ for a brief description) will upload and display models in a variety of formats, and uses a WebGL framework called ogs.js. So you just need to convert your SolidWorks file to one of those.

A lot of WebGL frameworks accept Collada format. If you can't track these down, let me know.

Answer 2

Here is a Solidworks plugin which can export Solidworks models to a lightweight visualization format .pyd. This site has a webgl based pyd viewer to view published pyd file.

Answer 3

You can use the Collada export from the SolidWorks labs page. But you should consider simplifying your models before exporting them to Collada with a tool like Swap3D. This will decrease filesize dramatically. Export to Collada works much better when exporting a part instead of an assembly. So you should always consider saving an assembly as part.