I am working in Solidworks with large scans, .stl imports (via scanto3d) of an ATV. A 4 wheeler kind of thing. There's actually two different/similar ATV models (we actually scanned two different bikes) overlaying each other.

For reference, SW takes about 20Gb of ram to get these fired up, part&assy files are in the 3gb range. SW is sluggish at best with files of this size even on a very fast machine.

So I get these scans into solidworks and they are a mesh. I refine them some with SW's mesh tools. End of the day I've got a big (2-5mil triangles) messy mesh, but lots of 3d points I can attach to.
sadly, this does not work in an assembly which is where I spent 99% of my time designing, I have to actually open each part, create a 3d sketch and drop a point where I want to attach to the mesh. Then back out, save, switch over to the assy and do design attaching to that sketch point.
slow and painful

There's no 'averaging' many points to account for error either. Like taking more than 3 points to define a circle.

I'm hoping someone will have some better tools to work with meshes than is built into solidworks

http://www.unlimitedengineering.com/gallery/files/1/XMR_407208.JPG​

I'm exploring several reverse engineering bits of software (add-ons to SW), but if any of you have any good suggestions, I'm all ears.

Thanks in advance.