STL stands for “Standard Triangle Language” or “Standard Tessellation Language”. In Rapid Prototyping the most widely used file format is STL. It is a mesh file format that is compatible with most CAD software one among them is SOLIDWORKS. It is very important to know who to work with STL file format.

STL file is a combination of triangle meshes. Which is a de facto file format for 3d printing.

In SolidWorks to work with STL files, we need to know the process to import one.

Steps to import the file format are as follows.

1.  Click on the open option.
2.  No in the file format choose “Mesh files”.
3. As soon as you select the “Mesh files” option button will appear.
4. Then click on “Options” a dialogue box will open.
5. There are 3 ways i.e., Solid, surface, graphic.
6. Click on “Open”.

After following above steps importing and conversion of the file is complete.

Once the file is imported we can see a graphic files in the property manager.

As you see in the above file it is a combination of Triangle mesh files. Addition to all perform any operation on this file you need to change is to surface or solid body. You can do it from insert option.

For exporting the a file as STL follow simple steps as given below:

1. Click on Save as button.
2. Then click on “save as type” drop-down.
3. Then select the STL file option.