OK - I can see I've got some testing 2 do.  The DXF exports were to Hexagon, primarily because I was thinking of assembling the scenes I want to do in Hexagon and exporting to VUE in OBJ format.

VUE has always been a 'bear' to assemble scenes in because I could not position objects accurately enough.  Problem w/ assembling scenes in ACAD has always been the type of export & number of faces to export.

I thought of using Hexagon as a 'watershed' application before porting to VUE.

I'll do the testing over the next few days, as I'm working 7days/week right now to meet an end of month submission deadline.

Will test as requested:

 ACAD2007 => DXF2007 => VUE

ACAD2007=>DWG14=>VUE

ACAD2007=>DWG14=>ACAD14-2005=>3DS=>VUE?

Any others?  Did you want me to use Hexagon in the conversions?

ACAD2007=>DWG14/DXF(or 3DS)=>Hexagon=>OBJ=>VUE?

BTW - Read on a newsgroup somewhere that ACAD2006 implementation of 3DS was crappy - didn't work correctly.  Any experienced feedback?