GrabCAD Community User Group

There's no regulation, anyone can upload your models. My suggestion, if you really don't want your models stolen, engrave your name on them and change the file type.

What does changing the file type do?

Let's say you design something in SolidWorks and then upload a STEP file instead of the solidworks part file, then whoever downloads it will not have access to the design tree, therefore they won't be able to suppress the feature. And if you engrave you name on a complex surface instead of a planar one, then it will take a bit more work to cover it up.

Point of order here; Anything you post to this site is fair game to be used by anyone. If you don't want your work "stolen" then don't post it here. Simply changing the color of a part can be considered an improvement and a repost will be within the guidelines if I'm not mistaken.

The other work around is to post a small part of an assembly, then all the renderings you want which can't be "stolen" especially if you put a water mark on your rendering.

1) Reposting transformative work is only allowed if crediting the original creator.

2) Not uploading what you illustrate is against community policy as well...

How about read the guidelines before opining?

There's supposed to be. That's the point here.

I get it, your bent.

Stop posting stuff you don't want "stolen".

Moreover, stuff you don't want foreign nationals to rip off and mass produce a product, and make a profit, based on your work.

Sadly, it happens more than you know.

Get un-bent, only post things you want the world to see without all the credit going to you.

True. In the end, GrabCAD is just a platform for engineers and CAD enthusiasts to interact and build a community. Everything you upload on this site is fair use, if you have an important design that you don't want stolen, uploading it on GrabCAD is a bad idea.

I was thinking about this as well.

I was thinking, is it neccesary for us to upload the source file, while not just upload a jpeg file with our names watermarked on it. or

another suggestion is can the source file be monetized, so people that want to steal design can atleast pay.

just suggesting what do you think.

Uploading just the image of a model or a placeholder model is explicitly against Grabcad guidelines. The problem I see with only uploading a placeholder file is the vast majority of Grabcad users never return to the platform. If they only had placeholder files there will be nobody to respond to the request for the remaining files. Then we will have a very large number of useless models. That’s already a problem since Grabcad has not enforced this guideline. Let’s not turn the practice into acceptable standard.

I’m all for monetizing some downloads. I’ve found on other sites that allow charging for downloads that it has eliminated theft of models. Thieves are too cheap to even spend a dollar on a download. Certainly nobody is going to pay for a download just for the privilege of copying it to their profile. On the other hand someone that truly has a legitimate need won’t mind a few dollars for a download. And a donation system is useless. On the sites that have that system I’ve yet to receive anything yet regularly have my models stolen. On the paying sites, I’ve made thousands and have never had a model stolen.

Personally I’ve removed any model from Grabcad that I would not want stolen or copied. Grabcad has become like the Wild West. There’s no one in control. And problems never get fixed. I don’t foresee it getting any better.

Exactly. i Just hope there will be an improvement, so as to reduce this theft thing. Thanks Bob Wiley.

Hidden the model and warned the user. Let me know if it continues.

I can under stand the problem and this issue but we upload the model for the people so that they can use it or they can consider it for the references. What have to under stand that what ever we upload models so that anyone can use it. If anyone is not interested share the file or just want to upload for the exhibition. He or she can only upload the images of those model. in this manner you can exhibit also and the possibility of stolen will reduce and if any one want that he or she can request you in comment.

you do know Solidworks has a little thing called FeatureWorks, right? you can open an imported model and it will ask "Do you want to proceed with feature recognition". clicking YES will allow Solidworks to identify and create the features it finds in the imported model, hence will create a design tree.

Apparently, you have not been using Solidworks nearly as long as you would like people to believe...

End of line...

does this part look familiar to you?

actually, i got this from Mike Geesser models. but as you can see, just because it it a step file, you can still extract information to modify the model.

Firstly, yes, I have heard of featureworks, I just don't use it that often. Also, listen to my argument, engraving your name on complex surfaces rather than planar surfaces makes a huge difference. Let me give you an example:

I created this part in NX and then engraved the alphabet "M" in it (it's not a straight extrude, instead it's a surface offset). I exported it in STL format and FeatureWorks isn't able to make heads or tales of it. Now granted featureworks is supposed to work for STL files, I get that these file types can be a little wonky compared to step, but you get my point. And let's be honest, most people that know how to use featureworks or are capable of removing the engraving using surface modeling or whatever aren't gonna bother stealing other people's work.

I get the point, stealing files is not ok, and I'm glad people are calling this out. I was just talking about some other measures you could take to safeguard the work you post. Btw, you are right, I haven't used SolidWorks for that long, it's been roughly a year and I'm still learning. I haven't even graduated yet and I use GrabCAD primarily so that I can learn from what others do.

.stl files are mesh files.

Fine, here, I designed this part in solidworks, converted it into a step file, opened it and used featureworks. Take a look at what happened.

Yes, that part indeed looks similar, there is a difference in the case opening, and the feature tree is alien. AI used obscure features to build the part.

My motive to upload the file as a step was to allow more users to enjoy the model, especially ones who do not have SolidWorks.

Totally agree with you my friend and i respect your opinion . I am just saying till the time CG is working on it We can shear our model's picture on this site (if we do not want any issue like stolen model). If some really required your model for reference or to do something good. he or she can request you to shear the model files in comment. As simple as that sir.