Thanks very much for all your help guys. But I'm not quiet there yet...

I only had success after making a planar surface within any lines, (adding extra lines to do so if required) or extruding/lofting curves as per Ralf's second example, before importing to Alibre. Both 3dm and igs files imported fine using this technique. That's an easily created work-around I agree - and makes the 3D sketching in Alibre obsolete :).

Ralf, I'm missing something in your first post, sorry. I don't see and couldn't find what you mean by "pipe: 0.01mm"? Did you sweep a circle dia .01mm along the curve?
After creating a zero-thickness line, or freeform curve, I tried the steps you suggested but nothing showed up in Alibre.
I also tried export from MoI as .3dm as you suggested and after using your steps, got this import error message from Alibre: "ACISERROR_INSERT_NO_FACES: Insert - The File has no faces."

Thanks for the Alibre import method too. It's not intuitive that File >Import... just creates a new file with the imported entities.


I did some searching and see at: www.sycode.com/products/dxf_import_ad/index.htm the author provides a relatively expensive Alibre importer for 3D DXF. On the same page he states (as you mentioned Michael):

"Alibre Design already has an AutoCAD DXF import feature. However, this import feature creates a 2D drawing in Alibre Design by reading 2d geometric objects such as curves and ignores 3D solids. DXF Import for Alibre Design removes this limitation by giving Alibre Design the ability to read 3D solid geometric data such as ACIS 3D solids, bodies and regions in an AutoCAD DXF file and create corresponding 3D solid models in an Alibre Design part document."


Hamish