It all boils down whether you use a left or right handed coordinate system (it is a totally arbitrary choice, so this is the explanation of my probably-too-cryptic why not).

It is not a case that often mesh importers provide you methods to specify the system to import from or even a totally generic coordinate mapping.

One creates a 2001-like monolith with 1:4:9 proportions and checks in which way it comes in and then knows who to handle conventions.

If you are dealing with many similar imports, in Blender you can create a specialized import script.

Bye!!!

GIMP 2.7.4, Inkscape 0.48, Genetica 3.6 Basic, FilterForge 3 Professional, Blender 2.61, SketchUp 8, PoserPro 2012, Vue 10 Infinite, World Machine 2.3, GeoControl 2