←  Technical Questions

nanoCAD forum

»

Cannot Export Solid Models to dxf

Charles Kliment's Photo Charles Kliment 29 May 2018

I created a drawing consisting of a number of objects created from 3d solids. I now wish to 3d print a prototype and need to convert the file to stl (or similar). One way to do this, is to export to a dxf and use an online or download converter app. When I export to a dxf and read the file back in, there are only a few elements of the original drawing and these are turned on their site.

How can I check the validity of the 3d objects? How can I convert them to a 3d printable file?
Quote

Hellen_V's Photo Hellen_V 06 Jun 2018

Hello Charles,
what version of nanoCAD do you use?
Quote

Charles Kliment's Photo Charles Kliment 07 Jun 2018

I am using Version 8 x64 Pro build 3507. I have some additional information that might be of use. In NanoCAD the 3d solids appear fine. The file also appears correctly in the preview window in AutoCAD when you try and open the dwg file, but as soon as you open it in AutoCAD, the application warns you that you are missing shape files. It appears that AutoCAD misinterprets the solids as symbols of some sort and draws bounding boxes around them. This is better than most other CAD programs, which just leave off the majority of the drawing leaving only the most basic Boolean shapes. Any solids modelled the "right" way in NanoCAD do not come across.

Is there something that I can do, perhaps using meshes that might allow me to output the solids to a stl file?
Quote

Hellen_V's Photo Hellen_V 13 Jun 2018

Charles,
sorry for the delay with answer.
nanoCAD doesn't create true 3D solids as Autocad, just polyface meshes.
We will release new version this year, it will contain command for converting meshes to 3D Solids.
Quote

Charles Kliment's Photo Charles Kliment 14 Jun 2018

I see. I don't suppose that you need a few sample files to test the translation process with, do you? Otherwise, I will need to rebuild my model from scratch.
Quote