Exporting 3d DXFs with Assisting Geometry

Occassionally I need to export 3d DXFs with the assisting geometry (lines, etc generated by the 1-03-3 command in Dicam) for engineering analysis. Every time I have tried, the DXF has been corrupt, and it has been driving me nuts. I can do it with all of the objects, just not with the assisting geometry.

So, I was looking through the DXF in notepad, and notixed Dietrichs tries outputing an improper Entity tag, which is what is causing the problem.

Essentially, it outputs " - Assisting Geometry", which is not a valid format for a text line. If it outputed "Assisting Geometry" in stead, it works.

So if you are trying to export a 3d DXF with Assisting Geometry and you get a bad error. Open the file in Notepad and replace " - Assisting Geometry" with "Assisting Geometry", and the files work just fine.

This should be a pretty easy fix, too, to do, in the software?

Joe

Much obliged.

It is an easy remedy, now that I know what to change.

Joe

Worked like a charm.

I suppose I could have dug through the frg files, but, wasn't quite sure which one did what.

Thanks,

Joe

Jorge,

Below is a post I made from earlier in the year RE exporting centerlines versus exporting Dietrichs axis lines, and it works in 6.02. (Your note about sending it to the engineer is what made me think of it.)

Joe

Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2007 9:35 pm
Post subject: Re: 3D DXF export of just center lines (axis)?

In DiCAM, if you use the 1-03-3 option to "transfer plane frames", you can automatically draw most of the element centerlines on each plane very easily. Since these are drawn as "assisting geometry" they can be exported into a 3d-DXF.

If you have a few "odd" elements (hips, valleys, etc) that cannot be transferred easily to a meaningful plane in the building, you can turn on the axis lines, use 4-5-1 (draw a free line) and draw a few lines from end to end of the member axis you still need. Then export the 3d-dxf with a "assisting geometry" turned on.

As far as engineering goes, this is much better than the axis lines, since this puts planar elements on the same plane, even if their axis don't quite line up (for example, if they are different thicknesses). It also creates all of the proper node locations for easily inserting into an engineering / finite element program. For more engineering softwares, you need a node (or line end) at each intersection in the structure.

All in all it shouldn't take more than 5-10 minutes to export all of the centerlines of the elements in a format that can be direct input for the engineer.

Even if you were able to export the axis directly, he would still have to spend several hours making all of the centerlines match up.

Hope this helps,

Joe

As far as 3d DXFs, it always exports them into units of meters (I don't think there is a way to set the scale?).

In my DXF viewer (autocad), I scale them up the factor of 39.37, (1 meter / 1 inch) to convert back to english units.

Joe