3d terrain from CAD?
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Hi all,
I am pretty new here, really like it here and have my first question
Does anybody have any experience with CAD files imported in SU? I mean i have my contour shape file, i exported it to cad file (both dxf and dwg) and then import it in SU. So far so good, i can see my contours. Now...how i create 3d terrain out of this? I tried to use -from contours- function, but SU immediately crashes
not even sure this is the right way to do it. Any ideas?
Ailig -
I know there is a fair amount of discussion that has gone on in the past, so I would do a search of the site, and I'm sure you will find lots.(Sorry I don't have time to look myself)
You will probably have to explode your your dxf/dwg files, and since cad files and particularly Acad files are notorious for not having lines that join, you may want to look for the "weld" ruby and install it so that you can make sure the lines are connected.
Just a start for you. -
Thanx for a quick reply,
yeah, could take a look at the forums before, gonna do it now and experiment
Ailig -
You've got the process right. But if the contours are too complex, you will want to run the simplify contours script first. Then run "From Contours" over the simplified contours.
And wheny ou say SU crashes - what do you mean by that? It completely closes? It gives a bugsplat error then closes? Or it just freezes?
If it just freezes, then it is not crashed. IT is processing. Even the little progress report in the bottom left will freeze, but SU is still working. Large terrains will take hours to process. You can split your terrain up into small portions and that might help. Or just let it run overnight. But either way, probably simplify the contours first, that might help speed it up.
http://sketchup.google.com/download/rubyscripts.html
The last script on that page is Simplify Contours. Download the zip file, unzip it it and put the contents into the SketchUp Plugins folder.
Chris
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Thanx Chris,
good advices. You were right, it was computing, I tried to cut the contours to make it quite small so that i can see it is actually working. Well, it took a minute, BUT....it is flat...i expected SU to preserve the height info. I see there are plugins for .shp, but i have only free SU version...so back to experiments
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SU will preserve whatever data is in the file that is imported. So if is a 3d cad file, SU will not flatten it - at least not that I've ever seen. So play around with exporting, and file formats.
Chris
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goto http://www.youtube.com
search for Sketchup tutorials terrain, viola!
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