Revisiting Cooking CAD

This is in reference to the Cooking Cad thread at: https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/Sketchup-Pro/sXz8PsYasMI

I'm wondering if there are any changes to be made to this. I'm trying to solidify this process for a little reference page I'm putting together for my website.

I didnt want to just post on the end of the original thread to ressurect it because it is 3 pages long already, and I'm only interested in the actual steps it provided.

This is where the thread left off more or less with drawing up a procedure for importing from CAD to SU succesfully:

---------------------This is a compilation from mostly Steven, and Anssi with input from Tracy and others-----------------------

1) Get rid of anything from your CAD drawing that you don't need (blocks of furniture, applicances, landscaping, HATCHES, FILLS, GRAPHIC SYMBOLS etc.) or things which will not import anyway (text, dimensions, 3D solids, etc.).

2) Explode your drawing. Several times.

3) Purge your drawing. Several times.

4) Make sure all your geometry in on Z=0 (Express Tools has Flatten and there are LiSP routines on the web if you don't have Express - literally search flatten.lsp).

5) Use Overkill in the Express tools to rid your drawing of duplicate lines which may be on top of other lines. If you don't have Express you can find Overkill on the internet.

6) Make sure all lines are connected (ie. make polylines of your geometry). This is especially true of curves.

7) If the curves you need are important curves (ie. in SU you want the best curve possible - as you know SU does not do curves but short line segments) do the following: Use the Divide tool in CAD to divide your cicle/arc into semi small lengths (the length of each segment will depend on the size of the curve - the more points, however, the higher the poly count in SU). Once your curve is divided erase your curve. Now draw a polyline from your endpoint to all your nodes and finish at your endpoint. Sounds time consuming but it took longer to explain than it will do actullt accomplish.

8) Make sure that the lines that should form surfaces in SU form neat interconnected perimeters round them, and break at all intersections. This can be done automatically by utilities like Qbrick

9) Move all geometry to Layer 0.

10) Copy/Paste drawing into a new, clean drawing file (no layers, templates, etc.).

10) Purge your drawing. Do an audit, too.

11) Save your drawing as a dwg or dxf and then import into SU.

12) In SU you will be left with just lines. Use the Ruby script MakeFaces to, well, create your faces without redrawing everything. For faces not created you will have to triangulate (complex interior faces do not always close).

13) Now start push/pulling your faces to create your final massing model.

-----------------------------------

Are there any changes to this recently? I've discovered Tood Burch wrote a script that breaks lines at all intersections. This is a script I put in request for a LOOONG time ago. Glad to hear it's alive now. That script could do a world of good here. So Todd if your reading this, is that script freely available? or did you put it on formfonts. Same with the flatten script...is that free or is it on formfonts? Both would be more than helpful in this process.

THANKS to all, any help is appreciated

Chris Fullmer

Chris,

In the original "Cooking Cad" thread, toward the end, Ansii talked about using the imported cad drawing as a template over which the SU model would be drafted, instead of trying to use the cad lines themselves to P/P from. I debated this option and at the time believed that using the cad lines would be much faster and easier than redrawing in SU.

Well, I now get what Ansii was trying to say. I've since created a model where I did, indeed, use the imported cad work as a template only to trace from. The key, I've finally learned, is to group lines right from the start, and THEN begin to work them into a SU model. Once I finally understood this, I was able to build that model much more quickly and with greater ease. I suppose it just depends on the project and the quality of cad information to determine which way to proceed.

Maybe this will help those who are struggling with cad into SU.

And Ansii, can you ever forgive my naivety...after all, I am only a "neophyte!"

T

Interesting. Lately I have been having great success with this process. Especially because the qbrick will break circles at all intersections, making SU import the circle as a series of arcs. Now the endpoints of the arcs will correctly hit the line segments that used to not touch the circle when imported into SU. Anyhow, I'll give the retrace method a go, see what I think. Thanks Tracy and good to hear from you.

Chris Fullmer

I attended an LND Graphics Workshop for SketchUp and Photoshop this weekend and thought I’d share a few comments with everyone.

Overall I thought the workshop did a great job of philosophizing the use of SU in terms of where it’s power starts and ends and when rendering programs such as Photoshop should come in—all leading to the most efficient and effective method of creating an image that tells the proper story while at the same time being very smart as to what and how much actually gets modeled and by which program. If it won’t be seen, don’t model it. I suppose that’s pretty much common sense, but I find once I get going on a SU model, I just can’t stop! Anyway, the workshop mapped out a pretty clear method and procedure of producing a final perspective image using both SU and PS.

In the handouts we were given, one section covers the concept of importing a cad drawing into SU. Part of their copyrighted literature contains the “Cooking Cad” list verbatim from the SU forum, as it apprears above. Now, I think I recall reading that all information on the forum is up for grabs (please correct me if I’m wrong) and I know this topic in general is discussed quite a bit on the forum. But, whether the information is public domain or not, wouldn't it have been nice of LND Graphics to have at least acknowledged where the information came from and who the contributors were? Chris Fullmer extended this same courtesy when he published this information on his web site. People generally put a lot of their time and thought into creating information that will be helpful to all. Perhaps at the very least, that should be acknowledged. I'm not trying to cause waves but it's just something I noticed. Am I off base here?

Tracy

Well, morally I think your right on. I'm not too familiar with the legalities of it though. I would say that these forums are not public domain. They can't publish the list as if they created it and make money off their supposed wealth of knowledge. I think Google could though. So I'd say they shouldn't do it morally and probably can't do it legally. Who knows though.....not me. anyone else?

Chris Fullmer

One thing we do when importing CAD into Sketchup is to use the cad as a template, as is stated above, but we always use the rectangle tool as opposed to drawing lines around the outside of the walls. We do this because you never know if the CAD drafter got all those angles at 90 deg. and as anyone knows if you get really deep into a model, it can be a BIG pain if angles that should be 90 deg. aren't. Just my little tip. got this from a another user here in the office.

Cole

"Part of their copywrited literature?" That's just not right.....

While I do think these are public forums I believe credit should be given where it is due. Did I originally put that list together? Yes. Did others help? Of course! Is the list "original?" I don't think so; I simply took the time to write it down for others. Still, acknowledgement is always appreciated - even if you never hear about it. I guess it's that whole "if a tree falls in the forest" thing.

Quoting steven:

"Part of their copywrited literature?" That's just not right.....

While I do think these are public forums I believe credit should be given where it is due.

I'm not sure though that someone other than google can use the information directly from here for their own profit. It is at least plagarism. Even on Wikipedia information posted there that is not original material has to be sourced....even though it is all public domain.

Chris Fullmer

Well, they are definitely profiting. They even had the audacity to refer to it as a “recipe”—exactly as it was presented in the original thread asking for such:

Quoting tracyv:

My question is...does anyone have a typical set of tasks they do to an imported cad drawing before starting working on it? A recipe of sorts

I am glad to see that some information on this forum is perceived as valuable and can be helpful to others, but I was involved in the original Cooking Cad thread and it was very clear to me how much time and effort several contributors put into its evolution, as well as the feedback of the many that posted.

I feel rather compelled to call the gents over at LND and politely ask them to include an acknowledgement in their literature. If anyone else thinks this would be worth my effort, I’d be happy to do it. Or, maybe I should just let sleeping dogs lie.

Tracy

That would probably be an acceptable thing to do, especially since you started the whole thing, and were the first to refer to it as a recipe of sorts. Seems like they could at least be nice enough to credit the creators or the forums or something.

Chris Fullmer

That’s true, Chris, I may have been the one to request the information initially, but it’s people like Steven who originally wrote the list, Anssi, Otto, and all others who posted their ideas, comments, and help that really deserve the credit, not to mention the forum itself without which this list would never have been conceived. I guess after being on this forum for a while now and getting to know everyone and seeing how much incredible hospitality and helpfulness is given, I’ve just found myself feeling somewhat protective of what goes on here.

Anyway, I’ll report back with any updates. I have a call to make :)

Tracy

Cool, good luck Tracy. Anyone at google have any idea what the actual legalities here are? Are they completely ok to use the info w/o referncing it? or are they allowed to use it at all?

I only do imports from ADT 2006 to SU specifically buildings. I find that the absolute best way to import things from ADT to SU is to follow these steps

In ADT

1) select all objects - explode them

2) select all objects again, - explode them, now you are left with faces

3)select similar objects (in my case windows for example) and block them

4)block all similar objects like this except walls

5) purge everything in the model

In SU

1) Import ADT .dwg

2)delete any 2d objects that came over the transition that you dont want.

3) turn on wireframe and hidden lines

4) go to town deleting those hidden lines!

5)switch back to textured view, use the rectangle tool (or whatever you deem) to recreate the faces that were lost in the process

6)clean up, rename layers, make components for similar objects etc.

you now have a model that works in SU and has saved you a lot of time!

Excellent Will03. That will probably be sold for millions word for word in someones next SU book or something.....hhm, that gives me an idea :) j/k Seriously that is great to know. I will probably add the info onto my exporting page somewhere....maybe my tutorials, but most definately on the Sketchup Wiki .

in that case copyright Will03 Enterprises Inc. 2006!!!

lol j/k glad to help, WilliamT and I have been working on this proccess (mostly his work, that i recently gave a small helping hand to lol) and we have almost got it down pat!

one thing that i forgot to mention is that if you are dealing with walls that have a style assigned to them is to change the wall style to standard, unless you feel like modeling the internals of the wall as well!

This is the way I work in AutoCAD (to get it into SU)Start a new blank drawing.

Xref in the supplied drawing(s).

Move the xref so that a corner on the ground floor plan of the building is at 0,0.

Move the 1st floor a known distance (10m,100m doesn't matter) away from the Gnd floor.

Repeat for remaining floors.

Arrange elevations in line with ground floor and known distance apart.

Set xref'd layers to Medium Grey and 0 thickness.

Create several layers (00-TRACE1, 00-TRACE2 etc) with thick bright line settings.

Trace what I need. I ignore all door and window openings(for now) just the walls.

Select the lines,polylines etc I want to import.

Using WBLOCK I write out the selected bits to a new drawing.

I import the new drawing into SU and to the facemaking, pushpulling etc.

Back to AutoCAD, trace some more, WBLOCK out what I need (overwriting the prev dwg)

Back to SU import, explode, facemake etc..

This way I only have to deal with MY lines, arc's etc in SU, also if I'm supplied with revised drawings I can swap out the xref for the new drawing and easily see the differences between what I traced and the new design.

By leaving out the doors and windows in the Acad2SU process I save a lot to time. For example, it you draw a window opening in acad, import the dwg into su and push/pull the walls to say..3m high you then have to draw 2 pieces of wall above and below the opening then remove the unwanted lines (12 I mentally count) also who says the original supplied lines are parallel, I've had lines in acad sloping by 0.004mm over 10m that have upset SU. Dint forget that's 12 lines per window.

I knock up a couple of construction lines in SU, draw the necessary rectangle and puspull the opening through the wall. In fact I usually put some dummy materials on the windowless/doorless model BEFORE I cut my openings, that way the materials are 'dragged' through the hole during the puspull.

I've attached a simple model to demo what I'm talking about, just step through the pages.

AutoCAD2SU-Walls-Demo.skp

Holy wow,

That seems like a lot more work than neccesary... are the .dwg's that you deal with not in 3d already? because if you use the wall tools and insert windows in ADT then import that to SU the hole is already there with the window in place, no push/pulling required!

I hate 3d in acad, I repeat hate and as for ADT, well, words cannot describe my feelings towards it.OK that was a bit strong but you get my jist.

Attached is a zip'd drawing, have a look, its looks OK doesn't it? Now Go and view it from the front (Menu: VIEW - 3D VIEWS - FRONT) and tell me its OK.

Its far far too easy to create such a mess. because not all things can be created in 3D some has to be drawn in 2D and then when their copied its far to easy for them to be copied UP as well as across.

Try this one:

In plan draw a 400mm cavity wall coming from the left , a 300mm cavity wall coming from the right and a 200mm internal solid wall coming down all meeting at one point (like an inverted 'T'). ADT (3.3) could not do it, the suggestion from Autodesk was "To change the design"!!!!!!!!

No sorry, I don't believe that it is practical to design architecture in 3D in AutoCAD.

Rant over, (Owww I feel better for that ;)

627 - 230-Floor plans 3-4.zip

Heres the actual building in Google Earth.

Nursing Home.kmz