3D Model to 2D Line Drawing

[Nathan_B]

I am trying to convert a 3D model of a building into a 2D line drawing. I have found that the best way to do this is to select a viewport on a sheet, then go the menu and select "Modify / Convert / Convert to Lines." The problem with this method is that the line drawing it produces has a huge number of unnecessary lines; remnants of wall components (for instance, I want the 2D line drawing to have walls composed of only two lines, but converting from a 3D model gives me about 10 lines, two for the stucco, two for the gypsum, two for the outline etc..). I have tried selecting the viewport and electing to turn-off "Show Wall Components" feature of "Advanced Properties" of the object info pallet, but this doesn't change the conversion. Is there any easy way to get two lines for my walls?

[GWS]

Hi Nathan,

Make sure that when converting to lines you select 'hidden line rendering' this will help reduce the number of lines.

You will still get many lines on arcs and circles because in the conversion VW converts all curved stuff into many straight lines. How many lines depends on your settings in VW preferences under '2D conversion'.

You can select these lines and compose them into one object but it will still be faceted so you then have to go to Modify>Smoothing and select an option to smooth the composed faceted line. I generally chose the 'arc' option.

I know this is a bit convoluted but I haven't found a better way.

I do a lot of stuff to be sent to laser/water cutting and have to do this a lot.

It would be nice if VW at least convert 3d arcs to 2D arcs in one go!!

[Jonathan Pickup]

when you covert a viewport to lines, you might notice that it is scaled, that is, it is not full size. If you use the same trick and convert an elevation view in a design layer to lines, it will remain at the same size, at the correct size.

There is a utility that might help:

http://www.vectordepot.com/market/vm-040-elevation-maker-2010-2.html