Question for CAD Experts

[Kerry Fullington]

How do I seperate the attached DWG drawing into seperate layers or parts to create a diplay object?

[Todd Miller]

How do I seperate the attached DWG drawing into seperate layers or parts to create a diplay object?

First you would need a cad software. (autocad,mastercam,pro-e,ect)
If just to get the dimensions of the individual parts and draw them up in Ecabs.

Kerry,
Doing what you want would require a lot of work since this is a line drawing in 3d. There are no surfaces or solids to use. So all of those surfaces would need to be created. Where did you get the file? If you can, try and find a model with surfaces on it. This would greatly reduce the time you would need to turn this thing around. We can convert a range of file types to stl files using mastercam or pro-e.

Do you have experience with CAD software other than ecabs?

[Kerry Fullington]

Thanks Todd,

Yes I have several CAD programs, I was just trying to keep from having to re-create every part. This is a download from GE. They have CAD drawings for all of their Monogram line. Many of the 3D models I get are save as one or two separate parts per layer allowing me to texture individual parts. It would take an enormous amount of time to re-draw all of the parts on the complete monogram line.

Kerry

[Todd Miller]

Kerry,
It looks las if these drawings were made for architectual layouts, not for importing into a solid world. We can help draw these up but I am afraid we would have to charge you for the time.

[Nick M Singer]

Kerry I opened the file in Turbo Cad put it into a 3D view, exploded it twice and am then able to select surfaces, these could then be put onto separate layers.

[Todd Miller]

There you go, "Turbo cad" is the answer.

[Rick Palechuk]

Nick, how did you get it to explode? I tried and it says " 8 found 7 could not be exploded".

[George Davidson]

I did in TurboCad
It took 2 seconds to do in one color
I will try it in ViaCad over the weekend to get all the layers

[Nick M Singer]

Rick are you using TCad? If so which version. You should be able to select the whole drawing from an Isometric view, Format, explode, explode. The second time it takes a little longer but the drawing will be split up into its component surfaces, if you explode further it will reduce to primitives.

[Kerry Fullington]

Nick,

I was able to explode the block using Intellicad but I ended up with everything in it's basic form, (just lines) and it is hard to select and group the parts I want to texture. I will keep playing with it. Thanks for the info, I think eventually this will get me what I want. I like working with solids better.

George,

I was able to explode the block in Intellicad and then use ViaCad to group the parts (sort of).

Let me know how you come out.

I want to get several of these appliances to use in eCabinets. I don't like them with the single texture though.

Kerry

[Rick Palechuk]

Nick, I'm using Autocad. I'm sure it can be done if I spend a little time with it.