Any ideas on importing a dxf into MoI?

Hi Steve, it kind of depends on what is inside the DXF.

There are several different kinds of objects that can be contained inside of a DXF file, like polygon meshes, curves, or even ACIS solids saved from AutoCAD.

Probably the best general bet is to use Rhino to read the DXF and then save that as a .3dm from there.

If you have polygon mesh data in your file, then that will need a little different method - you would need to convert it to .obj format (there are some free converters out there), and then use this converter program: http://moi3d.com/wiki/Resources#Obj23dmWireframe_converter which will convert the polygon mesh data into wireframe lines that can then be read into MoI.

If you can post a small sample DXF here that has a sample of the kind of stuff you are using, that might help me make a more specific recommendation.

- Michael

Hi Michael

Just to say first off that I think MoI is amazing and a pleasure to use. I am yet to discover all its features, but those I have seen so far are just great.
My work is architectural and my main 3d tools are Cycas and Sketchup. I use other 3d modellers (Amapi, Blender, Alibre, etc) to build furniture, bathroom fixtures, etc for my arch models. I have to say that the tools available and the ease of use put MoI way ahead of the other modellers I have used.

So for me it is perfect for modelling say furniture which I can then export as 3ds and import directly into Cycas.

I also need to draw contour maps from time to time for which I normally use Sketchup. But I thought I would try using the loft function in MoI. I usually import an image file into some CAD application and then trace the contours as polylines ( a sort of manual raster to vector conversion), export to Sketchup, position the contours vertically and then use the sandbox tools to produce a landscape.

So to answer your question, the dxf would contain polyline data or at most simple polygon meshes.

I did try saving a 2d contour map file as a pdf which I then imported into MoI. To my surprise it worked perfectly and MoI even managed to get vector data from the pdf.

I will try the route via obj and let you know how it goes.

Steve