ConRAD / 3ds2rad converter - ArchiCAD -> Radiance

radiance-general
1

Hi list,

2 questions:

1. Does anyone happen to have the 3ds2rad converter from Ole Lemming?
Both his website and he himself seem to have vanished from the internet
and even after extensive search I was unable to find his converter.

2. Does anyone know a reasonable method to render an ArchCAD (6.5+)
3D model with radiance? All the DXF output options I have tried so far
were rather unsuccessful, I have not found a way to correctly
export/ translate materials or elements from ArchiCAD.

With Georg's dxf2rad I get a Radiance model, but the resulting Radiance
scene is pretty much unusable which is not Georgs fault. If I load the
DXF file into AutoCAD for examination I see that the DXF file is just
messed up with regards to layers/blocks/materials.

Any input very welcome!

Erwin

2

Erwin,

To follow on from Greg - here's a tiny shell script to carry
out the 3ds > mgf > rad in one command. I called it 3ds2rad (not knowing
there was another).

The mgfilt command (upto $nam.rad) is all one line. This command
strips out perturbations to the surface normal that may have been
added to the CAD model at some point. In my experience they have always
been spurious and best removed.

For file, say, "model.3ds", just enter:

  3ds2rad model.3ds

Ignore the report "3ds2mgf: unexpected EOF".

This will produce the files:

  matmodel.rad - the material description
  model.rad - the geometry
  
You should be able to view it right away:

  objview matmodel.rad model.rad

-John

PS. I'd welcome any reports of using SketchUp to model scenes for Radiance.

=======================3ds2rad========================
#!/bin/csh -f

set tds = $1

set nam = $tds:r

3ds2mgf $tds

mgfilt '#,c,cct,cmix,cspec,cxy,cyl,ed,f,ies,ir,m,o,p,prism,rd,rs,sides,sph,td,ts,v,xf,fh' $nam.mgf |
mgf2rad -m mat$n
am.rad >! $nam.rad

rm $nam.mgf $nam.inc

···

======================================================

---------------------------------------------
Dr. John Mardaljevic
Senior Research Fellow
Institute of Energy and Sustainable Development
De Montfort University
The Gateway
Leicester
LE1 9BH, UK
+44 (0) 116 257 7972
+44 (0) 116 257 7981 (fax)

[email protected]
http://www.iesd.dmu.ac.uk/~jm