I don’t recall if I’ve EVER had a great result from importing a DXF into SU, and no exception this time. A friend provided this file (a 12” gate valve with gearbox) native to Solidworks. I’ve seen it rendered in 3D from multiple angles via PDFs he has sent, so I know the data WERE all there on his end, but all I get out of it is 2D. Am I missing some import option setting?
12in Gate Valve W-Gear.DXF (544.4 KB)
The DXF file only contains 2D information. Your friend needs to supply a 3D file if you want to import a 3D model? Of you could use this as a starting point for making a 3D model.
Thanks, Dave. I’m a bit baffled because another collaborator didn’t mention having any problem with the file - and he’s working in ACAD. I’ll check back with the originator.
If the other collaborator had a 3D thing directly from the CAD file, they were starting from a different CAD file.
Here’s the one you shared opened in FreeCAD.
Ain’t no 3D about it.
So Dave, if you had your choice of AutoCAD formats from which to import into Sketchup as 3D with minimal fuss, what would it be? My source guy confirmed his file wasn’t intended to be 3D to begin with, per understanding with our collaborator, who didn’t NEED 3D, so I’m the last to know. But he can send me some range of different options of 3D…he mentioned STL…?
If you can get an STL file, take that. But when you import it into SketchUp set the import units to be Meters to avoid potetntial tiny face issues.
How are you going to use the model once you have it in SketchUp?
IN this, the best of all possible worlds, I’d group it and never ungroup again, but I suppose in reality, I can expect to have to…what, fill some polygons?…and maybe make some other tweaks? That’d be OK.
The idea is to weld or bolt it into a system’s adjacent pipe fittings and be able to visualize the way/s it could be fit within a tight space while still making the valve handwheel operable and accessible.
After I sent my previous email, I noticed SU had flagged this discussion up, wonder if the graphic snippet would be useful to my friend when choosing the export mode:
DaveR - thanks again for your epic support.
.stl will import the geometry nicely into SketchUp but it will be tessellated, turned into all triangles. Turn on hidden geometry to see, it’s a product of the stl file type. If you want to work with the geometry you will need to merge coplaner faces. Clean up three can do a nice job of this.
Thanks, endless…sounds like the best option. I’ll try it out when I’m back on that project in a couple of days.
Aloha - Dave
RS GV model from Dustin.skp (2.9 MB)
I am not above just working with the tesselations as seen in the attached (thanks guys, for your help in getting me this far) but I couldn’t get any visible utility out of TT’s Cleanup utility…quite possibly because I don’t know what I’m doing. I tried a number of settings, but it seemed not to have any impact.
I’d selected “merge coplanar faces” as an option before importing, if that matters.
Does this look better?
As it is there aren’t any non-required edges so CleanUp won’t reduce it any further. You could use Skimp to simplify the model further if you wanted. You could also do things to reduce the amount of geometry like removing the features in side the bore or even remove the through hole. Maybe you don’t really need the geometry for the bolts and nuts.
If you were to use this as a reference you could make a more streamlined model using cleaner geometry. The circles could all be drawn with fewer segments and drawn on axis. That would also reduce the number of edges because it would eliminate a lot of triangulation and thus reduce the file size.
Here are a couple of examples. I just did the end. Even with a 48-sided circle for Follow Me (on the far right, there’s much less geometry than in the triangulated version in your model.
DaveR - That’s “as perfect” as I could hope for, even without trying to reduce file size…I don’t have a relative sense, but it’s less than 3Mb, which doesn’t sound too big - I won’t have many of these in any one drawing.
I was actually unable to recall (it’s been so long since I’ve done modeling) whether or where that “Soften/smooth edges” command was even accessed, and gave up looking for it in the menus, unsure that it would even have helped.
Where’s your tip jar!?
