Hello,

Background:

I have an assembly with a few parts that I want to export as a single PLY to be used in some custom robotics software (so it is basically a part of the robot that will be drawn with other parts to illustrate the robot in motion). I create a coordinate system in the assembly that is the origin for the part. If I export that part as a ply and in the options I select the coordinate system, the part is exported using the default coordinate system instead. If I try this using STL instead of PLY, the selected coordinate system is used correctly. I note that in the STL export window, the coordinate system popup button appears twice, one in the options pane (as in the PLY) and again at the bottom of the save dialog box (redundant). For STL export, the coordinate system is only respected when the second one (bottom of the dialog box) is selected and the one in the options pane is ignored. Unfortunately, the PLY export does not have the second (and presumably working) selector and it ignores the selector in the options pane. I think this has been the case for years.

Has anyone seen this issue and have they found a workaround? I would like to keep the PLY format as it can keep colour values in the file and I then convert it to another format (VTK) for use in medical research visualization software. Having to use STL will bleach out any colours and make it less useful.

Thanks!