Keithw is right. I worked on a project that was made in cad. they wanted me to texture and spin it for a video. there CAD program cost $10k...apparantly it would not export 3d...they had all the export options like vrml, iges, .dxf etc...apparantly part of the program would munch it all to 2d. You might have to tell you client he needs a better version of the cad program hes using. Also realise that many many companies use proprietary versions of cad so they may have someone on staff who can right an exporter for you that will do 3d to .obj or something.