Hello community,
I need some advice on exporting my plans from LayOut as a DWG file. I have been asked by a contractor I work with to export my drawings documents as dwg for him, and every time I try, he tells me he cannot use them. My issue is that I do not have and do not use auto cad, so I cannot verify what my dwg file looks like or what is going on when I export it. Does anyone have some advice? maybe something in the settings that I am doing is not correct? Thanks
Is the person receiving the dwg files using AutoCAD? Any particular version? I don’t use AutoCAD, but I get DWG files from surveyors, and because what I do use is old, I have to ask the surveyor to save back to 2010 or earlier versions of DWG in order to be able to open them.
You can also try exporting DWG straight from SketchUp and see if he can open those.
Actually they use revit. The reason why I want to figure out how to export from Layout is so that I can also export all the dimensions and whatever work ive done in layout. Ive no idea if anyone has this workflow
I think you might use the “Export for SketchUp” export option. This exports your LayOut page just as it is to the AutoCad model space with your LayOut objecta included. I don’t think Revit is able to see AutoCad paperspace objects. The downside is that the DWG is exported at page scale so it has to be scaled in CAD to get back to full scale.
Your LayOut SketchUp viewports ought to use Vector rendering to avoid mixing raster images into the CAD output.
Get the free DWG TrueView application from Autodesk to check your output. Autodesk also has an online file viewer.
Thanks for the advice!! ill try this out and let you know how it goes
exporting directly from SU is better. Not good in any sense of the word, but better than from Layout. You can export linestyles, and use color by layer for the scene you export from. Then the different tags gets separated by color in the dwg.
@RTCool and @Anssi have given you some great advice. To that I would add … download and install the Autodesk DWG TrueView tool.
This free Autodesk program will let you open and view the DWG files that you export … thus enabling you to view the DWG files themselves before you deliver them to your client.
Regards,
E. Godsey
GTA Design
Except it’s Windows only, so not a solution for Mac users unfortunately.
yes I did check it out its only for windows, pity
Does the online viewer work?
I’m curious why you want this? If you’re exporting the model and they’re importing it to Revit, they shouldn’t need the dimensions information since they have the actual model.
you are correct im not sure either, I think it should be enough to just have the model so they can check or double check meaurements. I spoke to them actually and they told me the dwg from Sketchup will be enough, and they can obviously also use my pdf from layout to refer to the annotations.
So the best solution thus far has been to export it from Sketchup!! thank you all for the tips and advice
Yes, that’s my recommendation. Same thing for me at the receiving end of dwg’s from surveyors. Having a PDF as a reference is needed because there’s always something lost in translation. Sometime a graphic element like arcs not being drawn correctly in the receiving software, but almost always text is a problem.
I’d also suggest when working with a revit partner to start your model from their DWG output. Make sure you ID the origin point, mark it in your model for future reference if needed. The problem with SU dwg output is that it does not output aligned to origin. Can be easily adjusted if you mark the point in your model.
Thats good.
Sometimes it helps to go that extra mile and deliver what the customers want, especially if it makes their workload easier. But other times it takes some polite pushback, to understand why they’re asking for what they are. I’ve found when I engage with clients in that way (just continued curiousity for what they’re looking for) they’ll often arrive at the right answer themselves and consider you/me a valuable professional colleague.
Cheers!
I hope you found a solution that works. Exporting 3D DWG from SU should work but any reason why anyone didn’t suggest exporting a *.IFC model?
Ditto ! I’ve been wondering the same thing reading thru this thread…
yes so exporting from sketchup works fine. its a bit of work to do, as I need to export plans and elevations. in order to do this, I export each scene one at at time (all in line work style), as I have not found a way to export as dwg several scenes at once. Then after I export each scene as dwg, (eg one scene is a plan, the next is a section etc) I open a new sketchup file to import all of them, so that they are all in one scene, then finally export that. I did this because I think itll be annoying for the contractors to receive multiple dwg files, and it’s easier for them to get one file with all the items they need (plans and sections…). I am open to any solutions if anyone has come up with something .
regarding IFC I truly have no idea how that works?
And why don’t you export the model to Trimble Connect and generate the views and sections you need and invite the contractors to Trimble Connect so that they can view it?
Sometimes we insist on continuing to work with CAD and we forget that we have a 3D model that has a lot of information