Woodhead

I'm mildly proficient in CAD and attempting to do something which may be a bit over my head. I work in the entertainment industry and I get 2D plans from promoters/venues/eventcompanies, etc....What I need to do is extrude these plan views so that I can place my sound, lighting and video gear into a 3D environment and show the client what the finished product will look like. Does anyone know of some existing resources that I can study to learn the issues with 2D to 3D extrusion? Any information will help. Thanks!

I'm a new Vectorworks user, so bear with me. I use Vector to create sound and lighting plots and I need to be able to create a library of products from the various loudspeaker and lighting manufacturers that I deal with. Unfortunately most of them use Autocad R14 or 2000 and I'm tearing my hair out trying to import 3D files into Vectorworks. Does anyone have any insight into this?