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Subject: 
Re: Converting AutoCAD/3D Studio/etc. to .dat with 3DWin
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.cad
Date: 
Fri, 21 Feb 2003 21:15:46 GMT
Viewed: 
659 times
  
On Fri, 21 Feb 2003 06:45:42 GMT, "Darrell Urbien" <durbien@mail.occ.cccd.edu> wrote:

Theoretically, this means you can now model a part in a commercial 3D
CAD application like AutoCAD, 3DStudio, Inventor, SolidWorks, Microstation,
etc. (anything 3DWin can import) and then convert those files into something
that LDraw programs can understand.

-Let's say you model the part in AutoCAD as an ACIS solid model.

-Use AutoCAD's built-in file exporter to convert the solid into a
3DStudio-compatible surface model. This blows your solid model up into
thousands of little polygons (though they're still one object).

-Then use 3DWin to convert that .3ds file into a .dat/.ldr file. (3DStudio
users take note - this means you can go straight from .3ds to .dat!)

-You should now be able to open the part in MLCAD!

You can already do that with many commercial CAD program by exporting to STL format and use STL2DAT converter.
http://www.ldraw.org/download/win/stl2dat
http://marc.klein.free.fr/stl2dat.html
The STL format is an industry standard for rapid prototyping machine. In this format, a part is described with triangle
facets, this is very close to the ldraw dat format.

[...]
Steve Bliss adds:

The most serious problem is the converted models don't have any edge-lines.

They also don't take advantage of any of LDraw's'primitives'.  The primitives
aren't actually primitives, they're macros. They are subfiles that live in the
ldraw\p\ directory.  The most important primitives are files for the studs.
There are also scalable primitives for various geometric shapes, and
non-scalable primitives for lego-specific shapes.

STL2DAT adds the edges and the conditional edges in the file.
It handles alse a few primitives (too few I know), for the moment it handles only the cylinder and circles primitives.

I have used it with success for many complex parts. Check http://marc.klein.free.fr/parts.html

I have some ideas to handle more primitives like studs and peg holes.
For the moment, when I modelise a part with studs, I do not modelise them in the CAD program and I add them manually
with MLCad.

Marc Klein
A Mindstorms fan.



Message has 1 Reply:
  Re: Converting AutoCAD/3D Studio/etc. to .dat with 3DWin
 
(...) format and use STL2DAT converter. (...) I haven't had great success converting files from AutoCAD - perhaps I'm doing something wrong? It could also be a fault with Autodesk's .stl converter. Also do you mind me pointing Thomas to your site? I (...) (22 years ago, 24-Feb-03, to lugnet.cad)

Message is in Reply To:
  Converting AutoCAD/3D Studio/etc. to .dat with 3DWin
 
Hello all, While this certainly hasn't been a secret, I'm not sure anyone else has noticed: the latest version of TB Software's 3DWin can EXPORT .dat/.ldr files! Theoretically, this means you can now model a part in a commercial 3D CAD application (...) (22 years ago, 21-Feb-03, to lugnet.cad)

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