Exporting a 3d design to dxf

[charlie chop]

Howdy, I've got a 3d design that I need to break apart and export to dxf and sheetcam. I'm using vectorworks cad .
When I export it and bring up the file in sheetcam there is nothing there,
So is it even possible to export 3d or do I have to trace or redraw in 2d,
Any help appreciated
Cheers everybody

[sodfarmer]

I've never used vectorworks cad, but in Solidworks or Inventor you need to import the parts into your drawings and them save them as a dxf. It basically like you are doing a detailed drawing, just save as a dxf.

[beefy]

A 2d drawing is on one plane with X & Y co-ordinates. A 3d drawing represents a solid (e.g. SOLIDworks) object, has depth, sides or curved surfaces. It could be hollow on the inside, or have hundreds of flat surfaces on the outside. How do you get a 2D drawing of a coil spring for instance ?

In my 3D solid modelling software, to get a 2D drawing from a 3D object I have to know exactly what part of the object I want the 2d drawing of. I have to "project" that part of the 3d object to a new 2D plane, and only then do I have a 2D sketch of a particular view of my 3D object.

Unless a 3D cad program is very basic and automatically stores particular views, like front, back, top, bottom, left, right, I don't know if you can simply convert a 3D file to a 2D file.

You really need to get on a cad forum for your particular software and some of the "heavies" there may know a way to do it.

There is also 3D dxf I beleive and I think it's quite different to the 2D dxf that we deal with for our art files.

Keith.

[mike 1948]

Try this: http://techboard.vectorworks.net/ubbthr ... ber=160592