Sharing Files Via Internet 2

[Seymour]

I would like to be able to transfer part & assembly files from my computer to a vendor via the internet. Anyone have any suggestions? The files are too large to e-mail, even when zipped.

 

[SBaugh]

Get an FTP site.

For email try these:

Extrude a large block around all the geometry and run Unfrag utility to help minimize file size.

Or

Suppress all Geometry and run Unfrag utility.

Good Luck,



Scott Baugh, CSWP
3DVision Technologies
credence69@REMOVEhotmail.com

http://www.3dvisiontech.com

http://www.3dmca.com

*When in doubt always check the help*

 

[MadMango]

There is a service I used a year ago called WhaleMail. If I remember correctly, you were able to transfer up to 200mb of data to their site, then your customer had up to 14 days to get it before it was lost. Might be something for you are your comany to look into.

http://www.whalemail.com

"The attempt and not the deed confounds us."

 

[Seymour]

Thanks Sbaugh for the file shrinking idea. Do either of these ideas this work if I’m sending an .IGES format file?

And thanks for the link MadMango. As I don’t run across this problem often, I was looking for a free way to do it on the occasions that I need it. But I do notice their rates are very reasonable.

I do have access to a web site and was thinking about using a hidden page for the file transfer. However, I don’t know how to put a “download” button (similar to software downloads) on the page. Any ideas?

 

[Seymour]

SBaugh, I tried both the supress and extrude block methods, but neither work with IGES files. One more question, how do i use the defrag utility? I don't find it on any of the menues fo in help.

 

[MadMango]

The program is called UnFrag, and it's a small app that runs outside of SW. If you go to Download.com (or similar site), you should be able to find it for free.

As for the "download" button, you don't really need one. You can just upload the files to your server, then place a simple link on your page, which references back to the location where your file is stored. "The attempt and not the deed confounds us."

 

[SBaugh]

You didn't specfiy in your first post that you were using an iges file.

What I listed was directly for SW files.

How big is this Iges file?
Are you making it in SW?

If so, have you tried making a .Step, .stl, parasolid, or Acis file?

If it is too big you may have to look at either a FTP site or posting at a site...EX: like a personal site.

Best Regards,




Scott Baugh, CSWP
3DVision Technologies
credence69@REMOVEhotmail.com

http://www.3dvisiontech.com

http://www.3dmca.com

*When in doubt always check the help*

 

[Mindnumb]

Is the problems related to bandwidth, or to mail size restrictions ?

if the latter is the case, you maby could use a peer to peer
file sharing program. It allows you to pause the upload/download, so you can run it during the night, or at other convenient times. I think kazaa light is the most recomended one, it does not have any spyware or other bogus code in it, and are supposed to be safe. It also features a download manager like thing that allows you to download the same file from different places at once, wich is very useful if you shall distribute the file to more than one person. As a bonus, it gives redundancy. if your own pc crashes during the night, the upload will continue from any (and all) other machine(s) sharing out the same file.

of course, both sides wil have to have the same file sharing program.

Good luck to you, Bernt Ødegård, Oslo, Norway.

 

[Theophilus]

You may not want your files exposed to the general masses via the web. (Anyone with an FTP program can check your site for miscellaneous pages, and therefore find your "hidden" pages and files.)

I created a separate (password-protected) directory and web page with links to files to download for several of my clients. (If you don't know how to do this, you can often find help within your web administration page concerning password protection, user groups, and managing users.)

This is a tad cumbersome, but I only had to create the "face" page once, and simply edit the content for each additional client/project (such as file details, links to files, etc.)

Jeff Mowry
DesignHaus Industrial Design

http://www.designhaus-i-d.com

 

[Seymour]

Wow people, this is harder than I thought. First, I work in SolidWorks 2003, but my vendor needs an IGES output. One SW file is now 4.1MB, but expands to 25.1MB in IGES format and is 7.4MB zipped. When e-mailed, it comes back undeliverable “The content length of the message is too long for the recipient to take delivery”.

MadMango, I tried the UnFrag utility. It shrank the SW file from 8.3MB to 4.1MB. That worked good, but it made no difference in the IGES file size either directly or creating it after the SW file UnFrag.

As for the download button, the hyperlink sent the file as a text page, not as an IGES file. Theophilus, I’m not too worried about exposing the files to the general masses, at least yet. If I can find out how to do the file transfer, I can work on protection at a later date. Obviously I’m not a web designer, but do have some basic web and html experience. Mindnumb, I haven’t tried a peer to peer program yet. I don’t know yet if the vendor would be open to that type of file transfer.

 

[SeanF]

You may want to try NetMeeting. It is a program that both of you should have "assuming" you are both running WinBlowZ. At any rate NetMeeting lets you send / recieve files of any size your bandwidth allows. You could put all the files in one .zip and send that via NetMeeting. The vendors box if late model should have NetMeeting on it now as well as yours. This would keep both of you out of the "kaza zone".

If you don't have this need very often for large files then this could be something to use in a pinch. It has saved me from the problem you are having several times in the past.

Regards,

Sean Fahringer
seanf@MYINBOXISCLEANnewing-hall.com
Fix and repair as you would expect.

 

[DennisD]

You could also spend 50 cents for a CD and 37 cents for postage and burn and mail the file. Its a pretty solid interim solution until you do find the electronic answer that fits your needs. The file would probably be there by now.

- - -DennisD

 

[Theophilus]

Sorry about the slow reply. Things got busy and I couldn't check on this thread for a while.

If you Zip the file (on your web site), the browser will be much less likely to disassemble your IGES file into a string of text. I've noticed this sometimes happens with various CAD formats, even in e-mail. The Zip format seems to fix the problem, as well as decrease your file size. Jeff Mowry
DesignHaus Industrial Design

http://www.designhaus-i-d.com

 

[Seymour]

Theophilus, I tried to use a Zip file, but FrontPage wouldn't recognize it as a file I could link. Any other methods to use a Zip file?

 

[JamesMcD]

You might consider using a program called mIRC, to send your parts files over an IRC (Internet relay Chat) channel. By doing this you can avoid the hassle of FTPs and e-mail, and you won't be limited by file size (transfers only limited by your connection speed).

Of course you and whoever you're sending the file to will both have to download and learn the program (very easy), but once that's done it should be very convenient.

http://www.mirc.com/

http://daniel.haxx.se/irchistory.html

 

[juanma]

i think that the CD option is cheap and good, but maybe a possibility is using msn messenger, you tranfer the file from you pc to the other people easily ....i use it to transfer files with my friends, solid works files an other files( ) obviusly if the file is zipped much better...

Hope it helps

 

[SnowCrash]

IE will interpret an IGS file as text because it is text. Just for fun open a small one with notepad or Word. Just go ahead and share it anyway.

Crashj 'thanks fo sharing' Johnson

 

[Theophilus]

Seymour, I'm afraid I don't know much about FrontPage. I code my pages from scratch, so I can add any type of file that exists. If you like, you can edit your page in Notepad (or anything that can read and write text) so you can use your Zip files.

Again, this is somewhat cumbersome, but you'll only need to create your face page once and you can copy/edit this HTML page for use in other projects.

If you'd like to see a link that gets a file, you can go to any HTML-based web page and click View>Source in your browser's page to see the HTML code. You can copy/paste this code into your HTML document and simply modify the file name and folder name. The download should work automatically after you upload your documents, provided the file paths are correct.

Perhaps I can dig up some sample code and post it on this thread later.

Jeff Mowry
DesignHaus Industrial Design

http://www.designhaus-i-d.com

 

[Theophilus]

Seymour,

OK, I've added some sample HTML text below with explanations. If you paste this code into your template page, you should get good file retrieval.

<P><a href=&quot;files/Big_File.zip&quot;>Big file--9.25 MB Zip File 01-27-03</a></P>

This is the &quot;anchor&quot; (link) in its basic form where:
&quot;files&quot; is the name of the folder in which your zip file is located (folder must be located in the same directory as your HTML page),
Big_File.zip is your zipped file, and
&quot;Big file--9.25 MB Zip File 01-27-03&quot; is what users will see as a link to the file in their browser.

In practice, I would use the following code to give the users more information about the file, as viewed in their browser:

<P>Download our file.</P>
<P><a href=&quot;files/Big_File.zip&quot;>Big file--9.25 MB Zip File 01-27-03</a></P>
<P>For best results, unzip all files to the same directory.</P>

Of course, you should customize your displayed text, file names, etc.

I hope this helps.


Jeff Mowry
DesignHaus Industrial Design

http://www.designhaus-i-d.com

 

[Seymour]

Thanks to everybody for their input, especially Theophilus. I did add the code from your reply to my web page and was able to transfer the file easily. This is much handier and quicker than the burn a CD method, which we were doing previously. As the file was being sent out of the country, even Fed-X overnight took 2+ days with customs.