Sketchup to autocad
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welcome marina,
after three posts I believe you can add an image and a skp to illustrate what your trying to do...
this can be very helpful for advisers, so reply with a "thanks" [ your 2nd post ]
then rely with "I'll do that now" [ your 3rd post ]
then post an image...
you may be better off either saving and svg [ for Illustrator ] or copying single faces into a second drawing...
depends what your building, i.e. folded or welded, big or small...
john
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Thanks John!
It seems so simple to me and yet it just was not importing to autocad nicely. The table essentially has a top plate (that will hold stone), a cross piece, and 2 pieces on each end welded to the cross piece for legs. Trying to upload the original skp now and will attach the simple files I made by copying the plane of each and pasting into a new, clean file.
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Will try again with that file
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An insights on some best practices for exporting those shapes?
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I've only done minimal amounts of 3D work in AutoCAD, so I'm not sure how well SketchUp and AutoCAD get along in three dimensions. It will likely be much easier if you export a 2D view, like one of the standard views in parallel projection. And it sounds like that may be all you need.
When you do a 2D export, you'll find lines stacked on top of each other and cut into segments in AutoCAD or Illustrator.
Bob Lang
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What is strange to me is that I have exported some without any issue and other with many issues. But it sounds as though 2D is the way to go and probably I should learn autocad regardless.
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Just took a look at your dwg file. Don't have autoCAD here but I opened it in Illustrator and imported it into SketchUp. It appears to be a flat surface, but there is some wackiness to it. The arc has both an arc and a series of line segments next to each other. If I remove a line segment in SketchUp the face disappears, and doesn't want to come back.
My best guess is that somehow, somewhere part of it is slightly off-axis. I would suggest redrawing the part on the ground in SketchUp and trying the export again. I can't think of any good reason to take it through Illustrator on the way to AutoCAD. When it is opened in Illustrator the curve will explode into the line segments.
Bob Lang
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yep, that file was a little screwy...
I just tidied up the old dxf_export.rb plugin to make sure it runs on mac and it retains, arcs and circles, if drawn flat on the ground plane...
if you instal solidworks edrawing's app you can test them yourself, no need for illustrator...
I'll PM a copy when I've done some more tests.
so draw flat on ground plane [ in 2d ]
and before export,
top view, parallel projection, zoom extents
exportgives the cleanest results
john
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If it is an autocad solid, I think you need to turn it into a surface before saving as an older version of DWG (r14 ?), then try to import it into SKUP. Make sure the various parts are blocks - they are imported as components into ACAD.
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hi marina,
further testing showed the old plugin won't do what it should...
it doesn't export the ellipse, so fails even on your simple table...
john
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One thing i know. Dynamic blocks do not export nicely to other software. Even when you explode them. for work that is to be exported, i use designspark (free version of spaceclaim) which exports nicely to sketchup or Autodesk Fusion (also free) that has similar pushpull modeling and exports to STEP/Iges/DWG/Parasolid. Either software could easily model and ellipsoid. and both open sketchup. but dynamic blocks get mashedup a little.
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table_base.dxf
@emorgan said:One thing i know. Dynamic blocks do not export nicely to other software. Even when you explode them. for work that is to be exported, i use designspark (free version of spaceclaim) which exports nicely to sketchup or Autodesk Fusion (also free) that has similar pushpull modeling and exports to STEP/Iges/DWG/Parasolid. Either software could easily model and ellipsoid. and both open sketchup. but dynamic blocks get mashedup a little.
You can also export as obj file, I used mesh lab here ,but it does not have dwg export. I also exported stl to Meshlab and imported stl back to SU ok.
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Thanks. I did finally get this figured out but encountered another issue with a very simple drawing today. I drew it on what I thought was the "ground" and was told they could only see the side view. I had opened the dwg in solidworks edrawing and illustrator and it looked great in each. So what camera view is the correct view? I wish there was just a simple step-by-step with specific rules to follow. I rotated it so that I could see it in SU from the Front. Maybe I interpreted "ground" incorrectly?
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Hi Marina
I do this type of work all the time, design in sketchup and then have parts lasercut or CNC routered -I can give you a few pointers.
The first thing you need to know and understand is that sketchup does not create true arcs,circles elipses etc. All of these geometric entities are broken into segments. Sketchup is especially poor at exporting solid 3d models for this reason and there are very few instances where exporting a 3d is useful in other software packages especially where one intends using the model for any type of CNC cutting.
However I get very good results using one particular plugin for getting machines to cut stuff for me its called- Tak2hata: Create Section Drawing. Install it by searching for it with the sketchucation tools- a plugin you must install if you havent already
How it works is: a)you create a section through the part you want to cut b)right click on the section you have created c)create section drawing
This exports a 2D dxf of the section you want cut as well as skp model of the 2D section. It eliminates all kinds of problems you may experience getting goemetry or faces on the right planes and really solves a lot of headaches for me.
Note though: As I explained earlier- sketchup does not export true arcs or ellipses and you would therefore get very staggered unatractive arcs if you did this with the model you have uploaded. My solution is to increase the number of segments SU uses to describe an arc or elipse. This has to be done with the geometry BEFORE you extrude it.
Method as follows a) draw arc/ellipse b)right click on it and select [entity info] c)you are then allowed to increase the number of segments in the entity info dialog box. This will give you something which comes much closer to the geometry you really want cut.
Please note: after you have extruded an arc or ellipse you cannot edit the number of segments which describe it.
Hope this helps
Stephen
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