Hi arves, no there isn't any direct DWG import into MoI.

MoI does support a variety of other formats used by CAD programs though including STEP, IGES, SAT, and 3DM formats.

Rhino can work well as a converter from DWG into 3DM. Or you could try the new 123D app from Autodesk: http://www.123dapp.com/

If you want to export solids that were created in AutoCAD, you can export them to SAT format and then import those into MoI. But unfortunately I don't think that AutoCAD exports 2D curve data to SAT format.

Old versions of AutoCAD had an igesout command that could write data to IGES format, but unfortunately they removed that back a while ago.

In the future at some point I'll probably try to do a DXF importer into MoI - DWG is unfortunately not easy to work with from a programming standpoint because it is not publicly documented by Autodesk.

- Michael

Hi Danny,

> Autodesk's new free 123D will import *step from MoI and
> you could then export out *dwg.

For going that direction from MoI into AutoCAD, SAT format will also work - export SAT out from MoI and then import SAT into AutoCAD. That seems to work for both curves and solids.

I thought that this question was about the reverse direction though, about starting from AutoCAD and importing into MoI?

For that direction (AutoCAD to MoI), SAT format will work for solids, but unfortunately not for curves, it seems like AutoCAD does not export curve data to SAT format.

- Michael

Stand corrected, thanks Michael :)

Cheers

Hi Danny 123D is a good idea for using for DWG translation in general though.

- Michael

AutoCAD still does *.igs and *.iges export. I just checked in 2012 and 2D curves are exported in the *.iges format.

BTW- Is it expensive/difficult to be a TrueDWG partner? OpenDWG is OK, but seems to be a release behind and not always accurate...

Hi Nick, that's great news that AutoCAD supports IGES again with the latest version!

I double checked ACAD version 2008 which I have here and it does not seem to support it, so I wonder if that's something that they added back in recently, or if possibly it is some kind of extension pack that you got along with Inventor or something like that?


> BTW- Is it expensive/difficult to be a TrueDWG partner?

Their contract had clauses in it that were not really acceptable to me, stuff like requiring the app to be submitted to Autodesk for approval something like a month before releasing it.


> OpenDWG is OK, but seems to be a release behind and not always accurate...

For me the weird thing about OpenDWG is that their "commercial" license has a restriction that you can only distribute 100 copies max out of your organization. You have to go to the next step up in order to distribute it to as many people as you want. That seems kind of odd to me that the commercial level license has that restriction in it so that has made me not a really big fan of that library either.


So overall DWG is not an easy thing to dig into, right now I don't really have a plan to support it.

DXF is actually documented (for lines and arcs type stuff, not solids unfortunately) so that's more likely what I would try to support in the future at some point.

- Michael

"I double checked ACAD version 2008 which I have here and it does not seem to support it, so I wonder if that's something that they added back in recently, or if possibly it is some kind of extension pack that you got along with Inventor or something like that?"

IGES has been standard for as long as I remember (not an Inventor add-in). They might have axed the command [igesout] as legacy...? Anyway, it's located in the export menu now. Try the [export] command in 2008. I only have 2012 installed currently.

Hi Nick, in AutoCAD 2008 when I do the export command I only get these choices here:



Anyway, that's great if they have added it back in to the more current versions.

- Michael