SU Pro importing/exporting DXF files

bagger05

Sorry if this has already been discussed on the forums. If so, please direct me to a thread that talks about these issues.

I am in the trial period for SU Pro and have some files in TurboCAD that I want to make 3D in SU. A couple of interesting problems:

I will save my TurboCAD file as a DXF and import it from the File menu in SU. When it is imported, my drawing that was drawn 20" across is now ENORMOUS. 20x or 30x as big. It doesn't always do this, and I didn't want to waste my precious 8 hours of trial time to try to figure out an answer to a problem that might already have a solution.
When I import a DXF file, only the outlines are shown. Even though they are closed contours, nothing has a face. When I start to "trace" over the lines to create faces, sometimes connected closed contours will become faces without me drawing on them. Is there a good way to make it where all closed contours are faces?
When I export a file as a DXF, circles become polygons when I open up those drawings in another program. Any way around this?

I'm trying to decide whether or not SU Pro is the right tool for my company, so as I go through this trial, I'm sure that I'll have more questions. Again, if there are answers to these things out there somewhere (or even better, if a SU Pro FAQ exists somewhere) then please point me there and I'll stop bothering everyone.

THANKS!

pbacot

Look under "Window/Model Info" Units Tab and see what units are shown for the model you are in (inches etc.) When you import DXF check the units in the "options" button on the file selection window and change it. The difference in size is probably a multiple of the original, based on the units.
There are some plugins (e.g. Makeface.rb) that help. At first you can simply place the import on a large rectangle to see if individual faces will form. for 2d You can also try the Tool:"Tools/Sandbox/ Drape" to lay the lines out onto a rectangle. Is this 3d?
I have rarely tried importing 3d and only for terrain, where it worked well. In my opinion SU is not good at the 2d import. You can search Forum posts for ways of preparing the import in the CAD package. There are also SU plugins that will try to close incomplete lines and cleanup the import in other ways. I rarely try to use the import CAD geometry directly. If you have similar results as I, you will be frustrated continuing along that workflow. But for simple shapes as you posted before, probably OK.
This is something I do not usually do from SU or LO. I can get circles sometimes (or both superimposed), which is as good as never when you can't depend on it. Perhaps someone else knows the secret.

Company's FAQ don't really cover shortcomings.

BTW, You have 3d in TurboCAD. Isn't that any good?

bagger05

pbacot,

Thanks for the response. I'll try out your suggestions.

RE: 3D in TurboCAD, I know that TurboCAD will provide me with the same functionality that SketchUp is giving me, but the interface is in TurboCAD is not what I would describe as very intuitive or easy to use. I'm the only one at the company who has any real CAD experience, and mine was years ago in college. For what we're doing, I think that SketchUp is a much easier tool to use. If everyone here was really CAD-savvy then I think we'd just stick with TurboCAD, but SketchUp has a much shallower learning curve in my opinion.

bagger05

Just did the selecting units thing on the options button. Works like a champ to prevent it from being 12x as big.

Still pretty new to the program so not really familiar with the drape tool. I'll read up on it and give it a shot.

Thanks so much for the advice!

bagger05