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lscheer

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    Mayland,USA
  1. I suspected that vectorworks might not be able to handle this but the reason I'm trying is cause I need to produce some cad drawings for structural engineering details (bracketing for a sculpture) and I use vectorworks as my primary cad program. All I want to do is get a very simple 3d representation of the basic form (just the outside edges as they describe an arching plane in space and not any of the specific inside forms). I've always put off incorperating other more sophistocated 3d modeling programs- besides, I'm MAC based and many of them are not available on this platform.
  2. here is a link to some photos (rough models of the shapes i need to ceate in 3d cad) http://www.smcm.edu/users/lnscheer/shapes.htm
  3. I am trying to create a 3d object that is essentialy like an undulating slab (sort of like a furling ribbon or arcing wing). I've got a contour (footprint) sketched on a one foot grid (x,y) and elevation info that tells me a numerical height (z) of the contour at each point where the contour/footprint intersects a grid line. Elevations on one side of the object's contour are often different from the elevation on the other side (ie- the surface rarely stays parallel to the working plane but instead furls up and down causing twists of various sorts). I have tried making a 2d polygon of the contour in such a way that each vertex is located at a grid intersection, then converting that to a nurbs curve, then cycling through all vertices of that nurbs curve and typing in the correct z height . But when I try to make a solid object from the nurbs curve (so I can display it as a shell or thin slab) I can't get anywhere. I've tried coverting it to a nurbs surface and then using the shell tool but it will not compute. I can't figure how a mesh might work in this situation. Should I try to loft between two curves. There must be some way to do this but I'm not figuring it out. I have zyx cooridinates for each point where the contour meets the grid but I'm not sure how to use bezier curves because then the vertex of the polygon is the curve control handle not a point along the contour.
  4. Actually- while I did have some success with the suggestion to export as a dxf in illustrator 9, when I opened that dxf in VW the exported 2d vector object seemed to have some problems- It came in as a polyline 2d symbol. When I extruded it - it became a 3d perimeter shape but not a solid with top and bottom faces. I tried to convert it to a polygon before extruding it with only limited success and then it would not always render for some reason. On the other hand - Rhino had no problems importing illustrator files (.ai) directly (no dxf export needed). It would be extremely useful if vw had this greater import capacity- now it says it imports eps files but they come in as bitmaps so it is really not an import.
  5. Thanks for your response you are right - illustrator 9 can do it (I was using version 8 that did not have that export option)
  6. Is it possible to import a vector shape into vectorworks from illustrator? I can import an editable vector shape from another cad program as a dwg but I'm working with photoshop and illustrator and want to take the graphics into vectorworks. I know I can "trace bit map" in vectorworks but that creates an unmanagable thing that is a group of thousands of lines.
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