Importation from 3D Studio Max or AutoCAD

pdonner · 2 May 2011, 14:01

Hi. I got an offer from a friendly organization that they would be willing to hand over a number of models which are available in the two abovementioned formats. Although much has been written about such conversions I find it a little hard to sort out the procedures and advantages of each format.

What is the format of choice for importation to SketchUp and what is the standard procedure to follow in order to achieve the conversion. Thanks in advance, ph.

brodie · 2 May 2011, 14:35

So your options are .max or .dwg? Do you have the pro or free version of SU?

-Brodie

Anssi · 2 May 2011, 15:25

You could load the SU 8 Pro trial - you would have 8 hours to import the models. DWG or DXF is the way to go in this case. The 3D Studio Max format is so highly proprietary that it can only be opened or imported by the 3DS Max product family - I don't know of any converters, either free or commercial.

Anssi

brodie · 2 May 2011, 15:51

If they can save it as another version then I'd probably recommend .3ds or .obj. There's also .dae which is quite nice but it would require them to install a plugin for 3ds max which may be asking a lot.

-Brodie

pdonner · 2 May 2011, 16:35

Hi Anssi, thanks for the kind advice. As you can see from the author's info: I'm a user of the not so professional version, but I've got the right to download the pro version as well. Apparently I need it to carry out the task?

The models are quite old, apparently from 2002 or so. They were actually published for the Cosmo VRML player under the Virtuaalikainuu project. Should I ask for a save in the newest version or does this aspect pose a problem?

pdonner · 3 May 2011, 05:04

Ok. I downloaded and installed SketchUp 8 Pro. The Import/Open dialog enumerates the following file types: AutoCAD files (*.dwg, .dxf) and 3DS files (.3ds). No sign of *.obj compatibility, but I'll try out the material with these options.

Alan Fraser · 3 May 2011, 06:18

It's been my experience that only Max itself can open .max format files. Even top of the range file converters like Deep Exploration can't open them unless you actually have Max installed.
In order to strip the max scene of most extras that SketchUp can't handle, my procedure is to generally open Max, select the geometry itself, then choose Export Selected. I export as a 3ds, along with the textures...some of which get renamed/truncated because of 3ds's antiquated format.
Import into SU is usually trouble free, including textures. You can even set the 3ds import option to merge coplanar faces, which generally takes care of most quads that got triangulated when going into 3ds in the first place.

brodie · 3 May 2011, 12:50

I've had horrible luck with obj importers. As you noticed SU doesn't come with one natively. There are a couple free plugins but I haven't had good luck with them at all. I've only used this one once but it worked great and was really fast and it's also free. Plus it places it in your Import menu where it belongs, not in the plugins menu
go to http://www.fluidray.com/downloads
and look for this link at the bottom
FluidImporter for SketchUp Win32

As for 3ds, folks say it's antiquated but SU is pretty simplistic so I find it to be a good fit. The only trick is the materials. If you export a model with a bunch of vray materials or anything along those lines, your materials won't come into SU. Your best bet is to change all the materials to "Standard" materials in which case SU will import whatever map was in the Standard material's diffuse slot with proper UV. There are a couple plugins that will convert all of the materials for you. I can find out which one I use if it'll help you.

-Brodie

pdonner · 3 May 2011, 14:13

Thanks for all the clever advice and thanks Alan for the really detailed practical instructions.

I hope to get the material in one day or two. Now I'll be able to tell the wishes that they would be willing to listen to.

Some of the well-meant advice will perhaps not be applicable. I guess they will send a larger environment as a whole, instead of individual buildings. Also, I don't have access to the native programs. Let's see what I can make out of the material.

pdonner · 5 May 2011, 08:21

The leading planner at the partner organization kindly sent me some specimens. For the time being the models are all in the AutoCAD DWG format and as WRL-files, which I guess would be VRML?

There are a number of references on Sketchucation about exports to VRML, but couldn't find hints about a way to import WRL-files. The material could be helpful, because at least the colors are correctly defined there. - Any ideas?

Managed to import the AutoCAD material without greater hassle. The colleague pointed out (in Finnish):

@unknownuser said:

The problem with the autocad-file is that the autocad colors are not the same as those aimed at in vrml. In those days autocad didn't have all colors, so our colors were stored as so called xdata in the object for translation /in the VRML file/.

So I've got a bright green roof (wrong color) and nothing else. He promised to check, if he could carry out a conversion to current versions of AutoCAD and 3D Studio which would preserve the colors.

Other problems which I quickly detected:

a) Some of the roofs contain diagonal lines, which obviously could stem from the roof edges not being coplanar. Unfortunately some walls have similar problems (which could become nasty). b) Buildings intersect wrongly. The roofs are built crossing into one another.

dedmin · 5 May 2011, 09:54

You can try this - download the free FBX Converter and convert .dxf to .fbx, then convert .fbx to colada or .obj and then import in SketchUP.
http://www.autodesk.cz/adsk/servlet/pc/item?siteID=123112&id=10775855
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9DkHAkvW1c

pdonner · 8 May 2011, 05:56

The preceding suggestion was apparently not meant to be advice on how to act on the VRML material.

Should I interpret this to mean that there is no conversion from WRL files to SketchUp?

dedmin · 8 May 2011, 08:30

@pdonner said:

The preceding suggestion was apparently not meant to be advice on how to act on the VRML material.

Should I interpret this to mean that there is no conversion from WRL files to SketchUp?

You can use Blender to open vrml files and then export as colada or 3ds to import in SketchUP.

pdonner · 10 May 2011, 02:25

Hi dedmin. I downloaded and installed Blender. Yes, there is a File > Import > X3D Extensible 3D (.x3d/.wrl) command, but wasn't lucky with my test material. As far as I can see, the command did nothing. There seems to be some kind of conversion script behind the command, but maybe my files are too old?