Hi All,

Is there any freeware available for the DWG to IGES file conversion?
Life would be much easier for me to have that option instead of dealing with the ai or pdf files as I'd like to use MoI mostly for the architecture.

Cheers,
Marek

Hi Marek, it's difficult to find freeware that deals with IGES format.

But there is an inexpensive CAD program called ViaCAD that I think would be able to do it. It looks like the most basic version of it ViaCAD 2D seems to support DWG and IGES, that version is only $49. http://www.punchcad.com/products/viacad2dV6.htm

There is also a version with some more functionality in it ViaCAD 2D/3D, it's not much more expensive at $99: http://www.punchcad.com/products/viacad2d3dV7.htm

- Michael

Thanks Michael for quick response!

Does that mean that I should never expect direct DWG import to MoI?

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Marek

Hi Marek, I'm not sure about DWG - it's a pretty difficult format to deal with because it is not publicly documented by Autodesk.

DXF is documented though, so that may be more feasible. Also usually any program that exports to DWG files can also export to DXF as well.

But file importers of any type are usually difficult areas of work though, so I'm not exactly sure when that will happen.

- Michael

Thanks Michael,

Marek

Yeah DWG or DXF is a must for me, im fed up of playing with PDFs (and still no groups, ggrrr!!!!). I think the time spent making a dxf importer would be well worth it in terms of attracting more folks to moi. most other software worth its salt has a dwg importer these days, isn't there a generic one that someone has made that simply translates the lines and coordinates? Im mean in terms of 2D from the outside it would seem like its just basic lines and arcs, certainly compared to nurbs complexity. I think holding off on this is a big oversite to be honest but its michaels call.

Hi Rob, well unfortunately they are pretty complex formats to deal with well, particularly DWG.

Autodesk does not document the DWG format, actually it's more the reverse where they have actually tried to make DWG difficult for other programs to read. They only document DXF.

So this makes DWG difficult to deal with directly, you really have to use a library to make it possible to deal with DWG and the libraries are pretty expensive.

Since Autodesk has actually put effort into trying to prevent other programs from reading and writing DWG, it just makes me kind of think "forget about it, that's such a mess I won't even fuss with that" or something along those lines.

DXF though is on my list of things to add in to MoI, it will probably be the next file format that I add in support for. But adding in support for file formats involves quite a lot of work, especially lots of testing with other programs.

Things that involve lots of work take lots of time and do not happen all at once...

- Michael

DXF would be fine and like you say most programs that support DWG also support DXF so no problems there and it would seem DXF doesnt change nearly as much as DWG so no doubt a safer bet. Im glad its next on your file importer list as im sure for many moi is one part of a larger toolset and getting the base information into moi is an important phase in the pipeline. Good stuff.