Thread

Truespace Archive

Site Features

Activeworlds Support

Historic Archives
Troubles with DXF

About Truespace Archives

These pages are a copy of the official truespace forums prior to their removal somewhere around 2011.

They are retained here for archive purposes only.

Troubles with DXF // Archive: Tech Forum

1  |  

Post by rgnolan // Oct 31, 2006, 4:24pm

rgnolan
Total Posts: 1
 I am trying to import simple floor plans from autocad LT and turbocad to extrude but even the simplest layouts seem to produce geometry that truespace 6.6 cannot handle. Sometimes it seems to work but then as soon as you try to edit the geometry it quickly falls apart. It seems to me this should not be a problem and many tutorials suggest using dxf for begining models but I have had no luck. Does anyone know what the secret is here??


Appreciate the help,


Ron

Post by fahembree // Oct 31, 2006, 5:21pm

fahembree
Total Posts: 123
pic
I don't know the answer but I also have not had much luck with drawing in autocad and then trying to import what I had drawn. However I am not a 3d autocad user, but I have tried to open a 3d model that I got from a autocad user and everything was drawn using solids. ( I have no idea how you create 3d soilds in autocad, but i exported the dwg to dxf and was suprised that truespace

was able to read the entire file. Attached is a partial image of the file.


I went back to check this again since this was a couple of years ago and the dxf did not work. I was incorrect saying this was opened in TS fram a dxf file. What I did to get it to work was to export the file from autcad to a 3ds (3dstudio) file as this is a option. I chose to export object by the layer option and then TS was able to import the 3ds

object. This seems to be the best way to get an autocad file into TS. Most of the file I have tried this way that I have created come into TS on one layer.

Post by Nez // Nov 1, 2006, 4:09am

Nez
Total Posts: 1102
pic
I use TS5.1 and also have problems with dxf import - I tend to end up 'tracing' the dxf (i.e. using it like a background image) creating polylines in TS that I can extrude etc rather than manipulating the lines from the dxf itself.

Can't specifically comment on your version of TS though.

Post by Bobbins // Nov 1, 2006, 5:07am

Bobbins
Total Posts: 506
 In the "DXF Import Settings" dialogue I always check "Fix Normals", "Resolve Holes" and "Close Arcs". When importing 3D DXF meshes then it's still common to get reversed normals in the model which require the normals to be flipped inside tS before it will render correctly.


I assume you are importing 2D plans, though. The problem here is that the DXF file to import is at the mercy of the way the plans were created and exported from the donor application - in your case AutoCAD LT. A square shape could be created from four seperate lines which is how it will import into tS. When this happens you don't have a solid polygon to sweep, just four unconnected lines which isn't helpful. As I just said, this is a problem with the way the shape was exported to DXF but since I don't know AutoCAD I don't know if it has any DXF export settings which would help you here.

Post by fahembree // Nov 2, 2006, 6:44pm

fahembree
Total Posts: 123
pic
Where are these setting in Truespace. I am using ver 6.6 and I don't see these setting to fix normals, resolve holes, and close arcs. Its been a while (2-3 years since I have experminted with reading autocad dxf objects into truespace, because I never had any success. So I decided to tried to experiment some more using autocad 2004 and exporting the floor plan to ver12 dxf, (TS seems to like ver 12 dxf )and TS seems to read the file ok, if its a ver 12 dxf. I then was able to use the TS polytools plugin for extruding edges and was able to extrude the line into faces. But when I render the file some faces do not show up so I assume that it is the normals that are incorrect on some of the faces. I know there is an icon to flip all normals of an object but that doesn't help as it works for objects and not faces. Selecting this icon makes the faces that do show up dissappear. See image of plan loaded into TS.

Post by GraySho // Nov 2, 2006, 10:03pm

GraySho
Total Posts: 695
pic
When you choose Load>Object from the menu, a dialogue box pops up. Choose *.dxf as filetype and click the settings button ;)

Post by Bobbins // Nov 2, 2006, 10:45pm

Bobbins
Total Posts: 506
 There are seperate tools to flip all normals of an object and flip normals of selected faces only.
Awportals.com is a privately held community resource website dedicated to Active Worlds.
Copyright (c) Mark Randall 2006 - 2021. All Rights Reserved.
Awportals.com   ·   ProLibraries Live   ·   Twitter   ·   LinkedIn