If I made .dxf furniture models, would people around here use them?

Obj format for model geometry seems to be the easiest to work with. Conversion is one of the traumas I have to deal with as a modeler trying to create stuff for Poser. :o)

Even .3ds would be better than .dxf (no slight intended). AutoCAD introduced so many variations of the .dxf file format that there's no guarantee a given application will successfully read a given file.

But there's always room for more furniture! Can you make that lion-head chair from the first Matrix film?

Remember that a DXF model will not accept a texture.

though autocad is good for designing....you would have to pick the format of dxf to export it from autocad into..and import into something else to save as obj...then map and txture it. adding work for yourself.

Um......Newbie question : Can DFX models be imported into UV Mapper and then textured? Or are they intrinsically untexturable?

You need to convert them to OBJ to get them into UVMapper, but from there you can apply texture mapping.

You need to convert them to OBJ to get them into UVMapper, but from there you can apply texture mapping.

Ultimate Unwrap 3D (http://www.unwrap3d.com) will import DXF files, map them, and export them as OBJ. I'm a long-time UVMapper user, so I haven't gotten used to the Unwrap 3D GUI yet, but it looks like it has potential.

Attached Link: http://www.tb-software.com/products.html

There's also 3DWin - a multiple format file converter that works very well in translating dxf to obj files which can then be run thru UVMapper. I use it all the time. Check the link.

I use 3DWin4 a lot, it's great for converting, as well as scaling, translating, and rotating. My only gripe with it is that it insists on adding "vn" statements for the normals to your OBJ file, which makes it about twice as large, and aren't used when importing to Poser anyway. Be sure to un-check "Export normals" when you save it out of UV Mapper, and you'll be fine.

I vote for DXf, and here's the reason why. In the image the axe on the right is a 3ds model I downloaded. You can see what happens, all the surfaces are rounded. The axe on the left is remodeled (I wanted each material to be its own model). All but the handle and the ring at the bottom were imported into poser as DXF format. The handle and the ring I wanted to have rounded surfaces, I imported those as 3ds format. You can see all the surfaces that need to be sharp, are sharp. If your going to make furniture for poser I have two requests: 1) Make all all you models at a 1:1 scale. To size them for poser (posers scale is 1/8"=1'-0") scale your model to 1/96th it original scale. 2)Set your origin at the bottom center of your model, that way when it's import into poser it will be the center of the ground plane.

Grey Cat you are correct regarding the non smoothing of DXF edges in Poser. The way to achieve the same effect with an OBJ would be to bring it into UVMapper and split by vertex. I found that the more ways I knew of doing something the greater flexibility I have in the design. There is often no one unique solution, each method has its advantages.

hmmm. That was alot of information at once. I don't use Autocad, but the software (Metasequoia) that I use to make objects and Poser 3 (that I got free from a magazine) only have .dxf in common. Little Dragon: I'm not sure how the lion-head chair looks like.. Long time since I have seen that movie.... PhilC: I don't realy care about textures, since most people usually wants to use their own. When I make furnitures, I usually stick with one texture, or I make the objects especially to be used in one software (such as Vue). And sometimes I put texture pictures into the package. The texture part of the modelling software that I'm using, is not very good either. Allen9: Ok I'm loading while I'm writing these answers. Grey Cat: 1: I don't have a scale on the software that I'm using. 2: Not Realy sure how that is done in this software. To the rest: Thanks for your answers. I'm going to try to make a picture with objects....