Re: ACAD to C3 2003-12-09 - By debadger
Back
First, what version of AutoCad are you using? I've been able to use 3DSOUT
since I believe version 14. DXFOUT fails unless you export version 12 -
which could be the source of both of our confusion. AutoCad radically
changed its file format with 12 and many applications cannot use the later
versions. DXF's of Solids will NOT export, surfaces will. 3DS format, which
always seems to be a surface, then became a much better choice for export
into Carrara.
It is possible your file is too large or too small for Carrara to read
properly, there are major size issues caused by that two decimal place
limit. Try scaling down by a factor of 10 if you've got a building or up by
a factor of at least five if you've got a finger ring and see if that helps
you.
Let's see. Export a 3DS file from autocad - say a simple chair. Make the
pillows and the frame different layers so it's easier to surface and far
easier to figure out how to clean up the model for Carrara's purposes. When
you export from Autocad, use the 'save by layers' option so you have pieces
rather than one single model. You will need to fool with the Crease and
Smooth options to improve your model's appearance.
Start Carrara, Open the 3DS file precisely as you would a CAR file. Double
click on one of the pieces. This brings up a small window that announces
there are No Parameters you can edit. Click on Edit (upper screen)>Convert
to Another Modeler>Vertex Modeler (even though the heart, meaning preferred
format, is on the other modeler option.)
This will bring up a four view screen, showing whichever of your pieces you
clicked on, now in the Vertex Model window and ready to clean up.
My personal preference is to click on the Reference View window, then click
on the single view icon (right side of the working window, top of the set) I
usually wind up going to View> Automatic Resize and if the view is still
distorted go to the Director's Camera (upper left of the working view
screen) and Send View to Top, Right or some view that I can then zoom and/or
rotate my view to figure out what I want to do from there.
There are some shortcut keys - I assume since you've mentioned AutoCad
you're using Windows? Hope so, I don't speak Mac (not a religious issue
with me, just what I'm used to) Anyway. Press Z, THEN Alt if you want to
zoom out (z by itself will give you a zoom window) D held down will change
the cursor and let you rotate your view (tremendously handy for moving
around to figure out how things are doing.)
There are others, someone's got a shortcut list somewhere... Guys? Could
someone post that list again?
Elena
-- --Original Message-- --
From: kentcshum [mailto:kentcshum@(protected)]
Sent: Tuesday, December 09, 2003 9:40 AM
To: Carrara@(protected)
Subject: [Carrara] Re: ACAD to C3
Elena,
Thanks for the info and the time to type it.
I don't know if its me or something, but whenever I tried 3DSOUT, the
resulting file would always end up not loadable in many apps, I tried
this in Lightwave 7, Truespace 6, not to mention Carrara 3. I did
also change the setting options from .2 to 10 before saving to 3DS,
but I just couldn't make the file to load in the aforementioned
apps. That's why I ended up being stuck with DXFOUT!!
Can you explain to me in more details when you said "you need to do
this twice..." please? Sorry that I am still pretty new to Carrara,
and that I may be missing something there.
And thanks for letting me know the memory leak issue, I would have
run into chaos if my work gets corrupted when under some serious
deadline!
But at this point, I am still only "experimenting" with Carrara 3, I
can't use it until I can grasp 75% of the program's functionality
before I can really rely on it to do my work. So far, I am liking
it, I can pretty much model with inches and feet with no problem, but
I do wish that the grid box on the main window can be set permanently
by default, I usually reset it to display 100ft whenever I start a
new project. But I dislike that fact that after I scale up the
camera for faster moving around, it automatically goes back to the
default scale, so moving in or away from objects are sometimes
tedious with numerous times of dragging the mouse.
Anyway, I will try experimenting with 3DSOUT again, but I don't
understand why Carrara still has problem with importing DXF files
even if they are just a few lines.
Thanks again for the time and help !!
Kent
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