What is everyone using to export from CAD to Radiance? (Perhaps some
don't do this at all?) With AutoCAD constantly updating, We are losing
our ability to export from AutoCAD into Radiance.
We may end up just writing a tool that does this, but before embarking
on such a task, I though I'd see what is available, maybe what is new,
and what's coming up.
Any thoughts or comments would be appreciated.
Mark de la Fuente
either use 3ds or save as dxf and use dxf2rad.
if you are lucky to have also a 3d application you may find much simpler
to export into obj.
ciao
G.
________________________________
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Mark
de la Fuente
Sent: 07 September 2006 14:48
To: Radiance
Subject: [Radiance-general] Acad2004 Exporters?
What is everyone using to export from CAD to Radiance? (Perhaps some
don't do this at all?) With AutoCAD constantly updating, We are losing
our ability to export from AutoCAD into Radiance.
We may end up just writing a tool that does this, but before embarking
on such a task, I though I'd see what is available, maybe what is new,
and what's coming up.
Any thoughts or comments would be appreciated.
Mark de la Fuente
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Hi Giulio and Mark,
I think that this is an excellent question! Although we do have Acad2000, I have been using 2004 and this has required changes in workflow, not all of them ideal. I am not sure what the development path is for Rayfront and thus radout as these seem to still be at Acad 2000, perhaps Georg can provide some input. As an alternative, I purchased Polytrans from Okino (www.okino.com). The nice thing about this is that we can read in a dwg and write out an obj file. The dwg import seems to be fine for surface type primitives. I have had some issues though with acis solid models. One of the nice things about radout was the ability to leverage the other primitive types available such as cylinders and polygons with vertices > 3!
I am not sure how many Autocad users there are in the Radiance community (perhaps we could get some number on this through a survey?) But it would be nice to come up with a geometry translation mechanism that would be easier to grow along with successive releases of Autocad. My concern with 3dsout is the limitation on geometry/objects and control of geometry tessalations. I have been meaning to sit down and look at this a bit more.
It seems to me that the best solutions would be to have a smooth method for going from .dwg to .obj directly from Autocad.... and that can work in successive releases of the Autocad. There is a application called OBJ Export from www.fpsols.com for $200US, this might be worth looking into.
-Jack
Giulio Antonutto wrote:
either use 3ds or save as dxf and use dxf2rad.
if you are lucky to have also a 3d application you may find much simpler to export into obj.
ciao
G.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*From:* [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] *On Behalf Of *Mark de la Fuente
*Sent:* 07 September 2006 14:48
*To:* Radiance
*Subject:* [Radiance-general] Acad2004 Exporters?What is everyone using to export from CAD to Radiance? (Perhaps some don't do this at all?) With AutoCAD constantly updating, We are losing our ability to export from AutoCAD into Radiance.
We may end up just writing a tool that does this, but before embarking on such a task, I though I'd see what is available, maybe what is new, and what's coming up.
Any thoughts or comments would be appreciated.
Mark de la Fuente
____________________________________________________________
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systems are scanned for acceptability of content and viruses
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# Jack de Valpine
# president
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# visarc incorporated
# http://www.visarc.com
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# channeling technology for superior design and construction
Hello.
My name's Thomas and I'm an ACAD user ...
My way to Radiance usually involves Blender which has another set of
limitations (it can't read 3ds 4.x files). So my workflow is
1) export from ACAD 2004 to 3ds ('3dsout')
this does all the tesselation and expansion of solids
2) import into a new ACAD file
3) export new file to DXF 2000 format
4) read DXF into Blender
5) export to Radiance
Not the best way but it works and we do not need to do it often.
I asked a Relux rep about the ability to export geometry from
Autocad and he said there are no problems or limitations with
Autocad 2006. I don't know how Relux Vision (which is the
Radiance part of Relux) manages it's files but for someone who
has a licence it might be worth a try.
Finally I started to write a DXF to Radiance converter for a special
project. It should work with every version of DXF because it simply
ignores entities it does not know anything about. Currently it knows
about polylines and lines. 3Dfaces might follow soon but I have not
yet looked at solids and might not do so for a while.
Thomas
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Jack de Valpine wrote:
Hi Jack, Hi List:
My name is Rob, and I'm an AutoCAD User. (Hi Rob!)
Jack, you posted some good info there, glad to hear Polytrans is working (sort of) for you. I'm looking for a DWG --> OBJ translator myself, as I'm building an object library here and would like to start using the mesh primitive for more drapey surfaces like sofa cushions and the like.
I've been using AutoCAD for 13 years now, and I love it, but I hate the forced upgrades and the extra translation hoops we have to go through, especially as the smaller developers cannot keep up with the changes. Rayfront is in this unfortunate situation now. We still have a couple of licenses for ACAD2000 (the most recent version that Rayfront and radout work with), but the daylighting team has grown in size here and so now we are forced to compete for licenses as we try to get our models into Rayfront. Maybe we'll look at some of the programs you've mentioned as alternatives. Thanks, Jack!
- Rob
Hi Rob,
To elaborate on Polytrans a bit. A problem with the dwg import is that it is based on OpenDWG, which is perfectly fine for non-solid entities. However ACIS is proprietary, so the reverse engineering in the dwg import option is far from perfect in my trials. I have corresponded with Robert Landsdale at Okino, he is of the mind that the "right" way to do conversion of solid geometry is by exporting ACIS data from Autocad and then importing with one of their special modules (additional cost), one of which is reverse engineered and the other uses a fully licensed ACIS library. I have no clue though whether surface geometry would get exported via the acis option in Autocad. And further I do not have a sense for what resulting geometry grouping/organization would be. I know that we depend on Autocad layering as a material/organizational strategy.
Some additional food for thought. The folks who sell OBJ Export have a whole slew of cad geometry import export tools. They are based out of India and I believe are quite able to develop custom applications if needed....
-Jack
Rob Guglielmetti wrote:
Jack de Valpine wrote:
Hi Jack, Hi List:
My name is Rob, and I'm an AutoCAD User. (Hi Rob!)Jack, you posted some good info there, glad to hear Polytrans is working (sort of) for you. I'm looking for a DWG --> OBJ translator myself, as I'm building an object library here and would like to start using the mesh primitive for more drapey surfaces like sofa cushions and the like.
I've been using AutoCAD for 13 years now, and I love it, but I hate the forced upgrades and the extra translation hoops we have to go through, especially as the smaller developers cannot keep up with the changes. Rayfront is in this unfortunate situation now. We still have a couple of licenses for ACAD2000 (the most recent version that Rayfront and radout work with), but the daylighting team has grown in size here and so now we are forced to compete for licenses as we try to get our models into Rayfront. Maybe we'll look at some of the programs you've mentioned as alternatives. Thanks, Jack!- Rob
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# Jack de Valpine
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# visarc incorporated
# http://www.visarc.com
#
# channeling technology for superior design and construction
We've had similar work flows. They are a little cumbersome when many
small tweaks are made and re-exports are required. Especially since you
may end up with many files. I always seem to.
Hi Mark,
Yeah, it is certainly best to keep the number of intermediate steps down.
-Jack
Mark de la Fuente wrote:
We've had similar work flows. They are a little cumbersome when many small tweaks are made and re-exports are required. Especially since you may end up with many files. I always seem to.
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# Jack de Valpine
# president
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# visarc incorporated
# http://www.visarc.com
#
# channeling technology for superior design and construction
I asked a Relux rep about the ability to export geometry from
Autocad and he said there are no problems or limitations with
Autocad 2006. I don't know how Relux Vision (which is the
Radiance part of Relux) manages it's files but for someone who
has a licence it might be worth a try.
Hello
To export geometry from Autocad to Radiance with Relux you will need the ReluxCAD (plugin for Autocad). All geometry which Autocad can read can be exported to Relux and then to Radiance.
But there is another more direct way, the current version of Relux can also read 3DS (no textures), DXF (3d faces) and VRML directly. We are working on the limitations, esp. the texture import for 3DS. This geometries can then be exported to Radiance without having a licence.
Siegbert
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Dr.-Ing. Siegbert Debatin
Development
Relux Informatik AG Dornacherstr. 377 CH-4053 Basel
Tel. ++41 61 333 07 70 Fax: ++41 61 333 07 72
Some thoughts of someone not using AutoCAD for modeling so much.
Instead of buying obj-exporters, having an iges-export would allow you to export your models' geometry to an independent format without loosing much information, adding the ability to import e.g. into other cad's if needed. From iges, you can create obj's with brlcad, which gives you control over meshing etc.
Lars.
Hi Lars,
I do not think that Autocad has a way to export iges at least not in r2004. And this would still require an intermediate conversion program, whereas at least a direct obj exporter then can use obj2rad or obj2mesh.
-Jack
Lars O. Grobe wrote:
Some thoughts of someone not using AutoCAD for modeling so much.
Instead of buying obj-exporters, having an iges-export would allow you to export your models' geometry to an independent format without loosing much information, adding the ability to import e.g. into other cad's if needed. From iges, you can create obj's with brlcad, which gives you control over meshing etc.
Lars.
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# visarc incorporated
# http://www.visarc.com
#
# channeling technology for superior design and construction
How do you get to obj format from cad. And then once you have a model in obj, do you need a certain program to properly export to radiance? Or is obj2rad just going to translate everything in the file?
We are looking at Torad. It still works under 2004. Looks like there are a couple of bugs that needed fixing including allowing the interface to run.
Mark
Hi Mark,
There are a few ways to get obj from cad. I presume that you are probably using Autocad.
1. use an intermediate package such as polytrans from www.okino.com -
we have used this and it works fine for surface models, though the
workflow is different
2. consider a obj exporter such as from www.fpsols.com - I have only
looked into this a bit. I am not sure how the export organizes
data, that is are objects determined based on layer/color
organization or what.
The two radiance obj converter (obj2rad and obj2mesh) seem to work just fine. So once you have an obj format file then I guess this should be ok. Obviously one issue centers around correct normal orientation. This is probably where a full bore translation package such as polytrans can help out by providing capability to manage the geometry.
I guess I had not thought about Torad for quite some time. How are you finding the speed of the export process with Torad? I guess the nice things about this, is that there is probably a group of users who might be able to support this since we can actually see the source code.
Nevertheless, I would also like to find a good way to deal with ACIS based solids.
-Jack
Mark de la Fuente wrote:
How do you get to obj format from cad. And then once you have a model in obj, do you need a certain program to properly export to radiance? Or is obj2rad just going to translate everything in the file?
We are looking at Torad. It still works under 2004. Looks like there are a couple of bugs that needed fixing including allowing the interface to run.
Mark
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# Jack de Valpine
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# visarc incorporated
# http://www.visarc.com
#
# channeling technology for superior design and construction
You made a intermediary software such as FormZ.
DWG > FormZ > OBJ>RAD
I would be happy to convert your dwg to obj so you can evaluate the process.
Take care,
Chris Jessee
[email protected]
On Sep 14, 2006, at 9:58 AM, Mark de la Fuente wrote:
How do you get to obj format from cad. And then once you have a model in obj, do you need a certain program to properly export to radiance? Or is obj2rad just going to translate everything in the file?
We are looking at Torad. It still works under 2004. Looks like there are a couple of bugs that needed fixing including allowing the interface to run.
Mark
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I do not think that Autocad has a way to export iges at least not in r2004. And this would still require an intermediate conversion program, whereas at least a direct obj exporter then can use obj2rad or obj2mesh.
I had been looking at it because I wanted a format for my models that
- can be exported from CAD
- preserves CAD geometry, e.g. no meshing
- can be imported into radiance and other formats using scripts
- is independent from any company / product
That way, I can directly access my CAD models from the scripts that set up the rendering, and do not have to export at all. Of course, if there is no iges-interface as in native AutoCAD, this has to be purchased.
I still use obj in the chain (scripts). If you have a defined workflow and are only editing in Autodesk software, then buying an obj-exporter may still be fine of course.
CU Lars.
Jack,
Actually, I have not tried to export any very large models with Torad. However, exporting less then 100 polygons is pretty instantaneous. I find that when 3D models are overly complex, they were drawn for architectural renderings and I end up re-drawing parts of them anyway.
"I guess I had not thought about Torad for quite some time. How are you
finding the speed of the export process with Torad? I guess the nice
things about this, is that there is probably a group of users who might
be able to support this since we can actually see the source code."
As far as updating and maintaining, are there any legal issues with updating and/or modifying Torad?
Chris,
Thank you for your offer. I may send you a simple model just to go through the process.
Mark