Import of attributes from other CAD systems

hughhoffy

Hi All

I am importing models into SketchUp that were created in CADWorx (AutoCAD base) The models are piping models, and have been created with attributes such as line number, pipe spec, tag no, etc.

Is there anyway when importing from say a .dwg file to apply these attributes to the SketchUp model rather than losing them? Is there any plugin out there that when parsing the file can apply these attributes to the SketchUp model?

Thanks

Hugh

Gaieus

Hi Hugh,

There is a plugin to import dxf text (I guess these are the things the native SU importer will not import for you).

But why are you posting this in the Google Earth subforum? If there is no special reason, I am moving your topic under the main SU forum if you don't mind.

TIG

As Gaieus says...
I don't know of any tools to do this... BUT if the CAD output were text-format DXF you could parse it in Ruby to find Attributes and somehow add then to the imported entities... Note how DWGs are binary and much more difficult to read with the Ruby API - but text based DXFs are at least 'readable' [although convoluted].
Unfortunately the built-in DXF/DWG importer in Pro assumes you just want the Geometry - that's why I wrote the DXFtext.rb which imports any text in the DXF as flat 3D text - but you still import the main geometry separately using the built-in importer.
It'd be possible to make an equivalent tool for 'Attributes'... BUR how would we know which entities got which attributes ?
A DXF has a unique 'handle' for each entity it holds, but that's not brought in with the geometry - I suppose you could import all of the DXF's entities as usual [using the CAD origin, this results in a new component named 'file.dxf']... then we'd run our new second tool on the DXF that would go through any Attributes in it and find the related entity [perhaps by 'handle'?], then compare that entity's geometry with those in the SKP's component.entities and find the match for geometry/location/layer/etc - then we'd know that particular Attribute in the DXF goes with that entity in the SKP, and we could add an equivalent Attribute to it... However, all of this seems extremely complicated...
Can you post a simple DXF of an example with attributes - perhaps with a explanation of what's what...
Note that DXFs compress well with zip as there's lost of 'redundancy' in a text file...
If you'd rather not make the data public then alternatively you can PM it to me ?

hughhoffy

Thanks for moving Gaieus. I didn't mean to put in the wrong subforum.

I am going to try and chat with TIG in more detail and will post a solution when I have a solution.

@gaieus said:

Hi Hugh,

There is a plugin to import dxf text (I guess these are the things the native SU importer will not import for you).

But why are you posting this in the Google Earth subforum? If there is no special reason, I am moving your topic under the main SU forum if you don't mind.

Gaieus

Of course no problem with the wrong place - I just didn1t understand.

And welcome to SCF by the way. I saw that you were directed here in the SU Help Forums, too - now found TIG so you should be able to sort this out with him.