Hi there guys/girls, I was wondering if anyone who has experience in importing 3D DWG files may be able to help me out. I have been trying to import this 3D DWG which seems for the most part to come in okay, but there are many faces that aren’t displayed correctly and also a few of the ‘layers’ seem to be out of whack. I tried the ‘clean up’ extension after importing but that made very little difference. It’s just frustrating as it would be nice to be able to utilise this model rather than start from scratch in sketchup - but looking at this it seems it will be more work to clean up and re-make pieces. Either way if any one could help out that would be fantastic!
Cheers,
Nick
/Edit am I able to attach a file to this post?? Sorry Newb
Thank you! I tried uploading the DWG but it is 3.2mb so only just too large to upload, so I put it in an archive. I hope that’s okay… Unfortunately I don’t have any programs other than sketchup with the ability to reduce the file size3D model for sketchup.zip (2.4 MB)
I doesn’t look too difficult to separate out the loose geometry and make it into SU components. For example, I created a component out of the Ground lines - see attached. It only took a few minutes of careful selection, make a component, hide it, look for missed bits, select and copy to clipboard, unhide draft component and open for editing, paste in place missing bits, and repeat (only two more repeats, unless there’s something I still missed).
Here’s the result as a SU file. [Well, it would be here if the file hadn’t exploded to 9.5MB even after purging, with no visible changes.]
For the rest, it might be easier to put all of this into one large component, cut out the bits that are already components (Acad blocks) and put them into the SU model context. Then draw over other parts in SU.
Sorry, haven’t looked at all at the layering. If it can be used to turn off parts of the model, leaving others more easily selectable, maybe that would help separate it into usable SU components. But make sure afterwards to put all geometry onto Layer0.
The short answer is that there is always a bit of work involved. I import DWG files of existing architecture all the time and they never come across ready to work with. Some of this is often just sloppy organization by the file builder and some Is just lost in translation, but I have come to budget around two hours to cleaning and regrouping/relayering an import to make it really ready to work with. Tip: sometimes multiple nested items and odd layering makes it easier to open multiple versions of the same imported geometry and copy paste carefully selected (wireframe helps here) sections into a recreated file with the layers I want. Also, if the file is really a mess sometimes I select all and fredoscale to z dimension 0 to and another copy to x dimension to 0 make a 2d floor plan and 2d section that I can trace to rebuild 3D. Better than starting over.