Mesh Import from AutoCAD

[MattG]

I am having some major issues. I have a scenic drawing for a project I received in AutoCAD and the set is almost entirely in 3D which is good. The geometry in AutoCAD is mostly 3D mesh objects. I prefer to work in Vectorworks, but for some reason when I import the AutoCAD file it comes in without any of the 3D Scenic geometry. It is not a referenced file or anything. In fact the entire set is one block. That block does not come in with the import. I have tried exploding the block prior to import and no luck.

Can anyone help give me some ideas as to why this is happening? Is it a import issue or can vector works just not handle 3D Mesh geometry from AutoCAD?

Matt

[Pat Stanford]

When you did the import, did you have ti set to convert every thing to 2D. (2D/2D Conversion set to all 2D)?

Make sure you are using import DXF/DWG not import Single DXF/DWG, as import single uses preset settings. the regular Import will set you control the import setting much more finely.

[MattG]

I've tried all three options without any luck. I get other elements from the drawing just not the major 3D mesh set.

[Diamond]

I have had problems with the geometry breaking when importing from AutoCAD as well (having done all of the various import variations). Are there particular ways that geometry is created in AutoCAD that does not compute upon import to VW?

In my case I was importing a 3D site and structure survey and ended up with only 3D polygons and path objects. A mass of broken 3D geometry was away from the main survey at point 0,0 and at a massive scale.

In fact the only way to get some of the geometry was to export to Revit then export as IFC. But this lost the terrain model and only kept the geometry of the existing structure. I had to overlay both files to get a close to what it should have been picture. A nasty and incomplete solution.