Question: what’s the best way to get data from Autocad Civil 3d 2010/11 to a rendering program, in my case Vue Infinite? “Best” meaning quickest, most reliable, and requiring the smallest investment in software…
Background: my modeling is typically done in Autocad and rendered in Vue. Up until Acad 2009, there was a nifty command “3dsout” which which exported 3d data, including layer/color info to a .3ds format, which could be imported directly into Vue. This command has since been discontinued.
Does anyone know of a third party application that would convert Civil 3D and Autocad solids to a format that can be imported by Vue (.3ds .cob .dae .dxf .lwo .obj .skp)?? I would prefer that the operation involved only two pieces of software (Acad and Vue).
I’m concerned that the answer will be “purchase 3d Studio Max”- which may be out of the budget at the moment.
What I’ve tried:
-export dxf from Acad -> import in Vue: works for civil objects (assuming no 2d objects are present), but not 3d solids: unacceptable.
-export to Sketchup -> resave in a variety of formats before importing to Vue: sometimes works ok, but time consuming, and introduces scaling/coordinate issues and larger/slower files.
-downloaded trials of a couple 3rd party “dwg to skp/obj” utilities ->import directly into Vue: worked flawlessly, except all material info was gone: unacceptable.
-continue to work in Civil 3d 2009: requires planning as C3D data is not backwards compatible.
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