#MicroStation to 3DS??
17 messages in this thread
Hi All!
Murph' here'
I just received a call from a Surveyor that uses MicroStation to create his
Topography and was interested in doing fly-throughs with 3D Studio.
Anyone have any experience bringing MicroStation Geometry in to 3D Studio???
Thank you in advance.
Murph'
The Civil firm I am now working at is converting Autocad to Microstation.
I'll snoop around and see if I can find an answer.
Lee
>>> The Civil firm I am now working at is converting Autocad to Microstation.
I'll snoop around and see if I can find an answer. <<<
Thank's Lee, I need all the help I can get on this one!.
I'm a former AutoCAD Dealer but I've never even looked at MicroStation.
Again, Thank you.
Murph'
Here's the deal, I'm told that MicroStation will write out native
Acad .DWG files and .DXF files. My approach would be to bring those
files into AutoCAD13 then use the new 3DSout command which seems to
work quite well. If I can talk the guys who use MS at the office into
giving me a 3D file saved in one of these formats I will try the
conversion and report further on the results.
Lee
Thanks a Jillion Lee I'd sure like to know if this works.
Murph'
It works!
Great Lee!
Thank you very very much!
Murph'
I think he would have to export to DXF. (I know, an obvious question).
If the 3d portion of Microstation is anything like their 2d stuff, he
may be in for a few quirks and frustrations getting it out. I don't
know what kind of stuff microstation might be dumping into it,
though.
Thank's Tim, I kind of expected that the Native MicroStation Code might throw a
couple of weird things in to the mix. If you are able to find out anything
else I'd be greatful.
Thank's!
Murph'
Well, if you are able to filter it through Autocad, it should help a lot.
Autocad is certainly more flexible with dxf files than is 3ds.
My experience with microstation was with 2d files, and we had to read the
microstation files directly into our unix workstations, and I can tell you it
wasn't a joy to behold. I wanted it to be simpler than that, but the people we
got the files from (we were doing a job for them), didn't want/ didn't
understand/ didn't care to give us the files in DXF, or something a little
friendlier, so we had to use brute force to make it work.
Hopefully your situation will be different. Probably will.
Sounds like we work at the same company <g>, Where did you say you live?
>>, Where did you say you live?<<
I currently reside in Portland, OR.
Actually this potential client hasn't really purchased all his software and
hardware yet so I was hoping we could steer him in the right direction. He
worked for the DOT and is starting his own company. Of course coming from the
DOT he was using Microstation and a Unix Software program for surveying
information call CEAL I beleive that the correct acronym. Of course I haven't
a clue as to the CEAL format but he did say the it was able to transfer to the
Microstation software he was looking at. I've got him trying to get a DXF file
from this setup prior to his purchase to we can see if we can get it in to 3D
Studio for topography/Rendering.
Thanks Tim!
Murph'
Hi Murph,
I have exported Microstation 5.0 DXF's to 3DS quite successfully for some time.
All of my work has been 3D stuff (no 2D), and within the obvious limitations,
it works well. The obvious limitations being Boolean-operated geometry, trimmed
surfaces, etc.. In fact, there is a way to export/import NURBS & other surfaces
whereby you can actually re-skin the mesh using the YG's SKIN/SLICE IPAS. You
can also apply textures to the re-skinned mesh parametrically. I can't say more
about that now, as I am currently contracted to writing a book for another
company, whereby this technique is explained for use with their B-Spline
modeler. With that program, you can actually export just the *lattice*, and
re-skin and map flawlessly in 3DS. See my other posts & uploads regarding this
subject, soon.
Regards,
BILL
Murph
I have been taking in a lot of uStation stuff recently, the biggest problems
come from the Beta spline entity type which ( as you may imagine) is very
popular for modelling ! The uStation operator can determine the segmentation
of the resulting pline, pline-mesh or whatever before translating it but it is
very easy to end up with adjoining parts with different segmentations and maybe
a few glitches as well.
There is probably room for an in-depth analysis of the ideal way to translate
and I think it would be worth it, uStation 5 looks to be a very good modeller
but it would need uStation and 3DS in the same for a day or so for trial and
error testing.
On the whole the problems are not really any worse than coming from ACAD, apart
from one big whoopsy…. uStation can generate a polyface mesh entity with only
_2_ vertices in the face, ACAD will accept this and even pass it on to .DXF but
3DS aborts the dxfin with an "Invalid ratsnest in DXF" error message. One test
for this condition is that uStation will not read the .DXF back.
Using Autovision to 3DSOUT bit by bit will detect the offending part but
proceed with care Autovision is one of the worse ways around for getting a 3DS
mesh. If this causes a major problem I have an Autolisp routine which will zap
the offending faces ( it is not exactly thoroughly tested but does seem to work
OK) let me know if you want it.
Microstation 5 will output .DWG or .DXF I have mostly used .DWG out of uStation
and then passed it through ACAD 12 as a sanity check before dxfing for 3DS.
Microstation 4 only has .DXF out and causes far more problems where beta spline
entities are concerned.
Grahame
Thank you Grahame!
This is exactly the kind of information I need.
I'll be getting together with the client next week and all this is going to be
extreemly helpful.
I'm very greatful for all the responses I've gotten regardng this.
Thank you Grahame and thank you All!
Murph'