Surveyman, I downloaded a demo of Amapi 7.16 & it won't bring in AutoCAD solids. Only the polylines with thickness came through.

Have you had this working have you?

Julian

William, Autodesk has dropped 3DS out in 2007 so you can't do that anymore.

Julian

Thanks Nano, yes I have things on separate layers. I think it's a problem with certain objects. Because exporting it to 3DS converts it to a mesh, things like cylinders cause a massive polygon blowout ie. lots of faces trying to approximate a cylinder. You haven't really got any idea of the polygon count until you try exporting.
The units are fine if you bring everything through from AutoCAD, but if you import extra models directly into Vue you have to be careful.
Last time I drew up some 3D boxes in AutoCAD that were the correct size of a car, bought them into Vue, & then scaled the cars in Vue until they fitted into the boxes.

Modelling is very quick in 2007 now.

We draw up whole power stations here so we need to use a proper cad package.
Getting these through to Vue has always been a bit of a problem. We strike the 65k limit with 3DS the whole time & have to export individual parts outs to get around it.
A think for Vue to become more of a professional business tool, & not just an art program, it needs to support a serious cad program, not to mention real units.

I had hoped to try the free version of Amapi as you suggested, but it seems to have gone.

Julian

Surveyman, your model was imported into AutoCAD from a 3DS first. 3DS files come in as meshes in AutoCAD. I'm taking about being able to draw things in AutoCAD, ideally normal Acad solids. We shouldn't be limited to just drawing 3D faces & meshes.

Julian

Quote - If you draw your model in AutoCAD, I think that you need to generate 3D faces or surfaces.  Linework will not transfer over.  I've never had a problem transfering DTMs (Digital Terrain Models) to VUE as long as the geometry was in 3D faces.

Yes but there's not many things you could draw using only 3D faces, and as I said there's no way to convert solids to faces.
Basically DXF will only work for terrain as you've said. Anything else & you need to export as 3DS.

I don't think E-On should be able to claim to support DXF.

Julian

Quote - Exactly what I needed to hear, too. I'm feeling a little more optimistic now. Thanks, surveyman!

I wouldn't get too excited. I'm also a AutoCAD/Vue user & have tried DXF quite UNsuccessfuly.
The example above worked well I think because it was a mesh. If you actually draw something in AutoCAD & then try taking that through to Vue, in most cases Vue just crashes. I'm pretty sure this is because Vue only supports faces via DXF. Unfortunately there's no way in AutoCAD to convert all solids to faces, exploding them gives you regions.

Julian