CompuServe Messages

Anyone… AutoCAD R-13 is awesome in it's ability to create 3D objects. Within AutoCAD, complex shapes can be created and manipulated with ease. Extruding curves along a complex path produces shapes in minutes that took hours in R12. The capabilities are all I've been wishing for in my business of designing furniture and commercial decor items. But there are problems…. They will not render properly. Not with AutoCAD render, AutoVision or even in 3D Studio. No matter which program I use, my smooth curves turn into jagged polygons. A simple cylindar turns into an extruded octagon. A smooth hoop back chair turns into something out of a Dali painting. No amount of manipulating, Increasing of Viewres values or surftab values has any effect on this problem. I am back to mesh drawing, hours of painstaking work with vertices and grab boxes to create surfaces smooth enough to render realistically. I've used both DXFOUT with high accuracy settings and 3DSOUT (no settings available) 3D Studio won't import R13 primitives at all from a .DXF file and .3DS files export the low res curves. I thought AutoCAD R13 3D was the program of my dreams (I had even bought Designer and gave it up when it wanted me to dimension everything and wouldn't render at all) until I found that it was a nightmare. 3D Studio is beyond my wildest dreams but it's not overly practical to recreate all of my already finished AutoCAD drawings in the 3D Studio Lofter.(I have hundreds) Yes, I have already installed the first AutoCAD patch, and although I don't crash as often, and I haven't seen a PHARLAP error since then, the resolution problem still exists. Help? Michael Hager Yorba Linda, CA