Topic: DXF revisited

[jbaxter]

Greetings,

Okay I know, I have been here before with this but still not resolved,aarrgghh.

I have simply a drawing looking at me on screen with acad r2004 which is a bunch of contours with z direction elevations assigned.

I want to export a selection set of these contours in a stock standard r12 (yep thats right r12!!) dxf file.

The problem is that if I compare an r12 standard dx file that is produced of these contours output from a copy of the acadr12 program and then compare with the export/saveas version r12 from acad2004 there is a huge difference in the file.

Now I have an old routine that I want to apply to the standard r12 file and demands a pure r12 file.

The end result of all this is that I want to produce a drawing in r2004 but submit an r12 file to the routine.

I have tried so many convertors it is driving me nuts:-)

I tried the progcad and all kinds of exports and manually revising the file in a word processor but all do not satisfy the routine unless it comes out of R12 Autocad as a DXFOUT file.

regards,
John

[Serge J. Gianolla]

Hi John,
If the conversions make you lose your hair regardless of the method/software used, how about modifying the routine to accept a less pure DXF format, before you reach total baldness. Hope I am not being too bold!

[hudster]

Download progecad lt, www.progecad.com

This allows you to save as release 12 dxf, or as far back as release 2.5 dxf if you want.

[jbaxter]

Hi,

Progecad simply does not create an identical r12 output to the native acadr12 dxfout command.

This is the same for the many convertors that I have tried.

I cannot change the utility routine, the company has gone belly up and the routine is actually a suite of software designed to create a digital terrain model. The suite of routines that demand the initial R12 dxf file of the contours works really well for us in our style of work where it creates a VERY smooth representation of the undulating surface model.

Surely there is a utility or convertor out there that will take a r2004 dxf output and change it to what was an r12 output, they all say they will but when you open the resulting file it does not look anything like the old r12 output, there is a huge amount of r2000+ stuff within the file.

One thought I have had relates to a utility that first attacks the r12 dxf file in that it prepares the files necessary for all the other routines in the software to work.

The routine is an *.exe file, I do not know how it acts on the dxf file however I suspect that it extracts the vertex data points and arranges them somehow. If someone knows how to crack into an exe that might be a help to find out what it actually does to the r12 dxf.

Regards,
John

Regards,
John

[Mark]

How about uploading both DXF files for us to look at. Maybe we can come up with some type of converter.

[jbaxter]

Okay, thanks Mark, will do that soon.

Regards,
John

[SDETERS]

Is this a 3D type of a drawing?


Thanks

Shane

[jbaxter]

Hi,

All of the entities (contours) have 3d elevations assigned.

Regards,
John

[jbaxter]

Greetings,

Here are the files attached.

First file R12GRN.dxf is the standard R12 dxf output from R12c3 version autocad and is the one which satisfies the programs I am using.

The second file R2004toR12.dxf is produced out of R2004 autocad (dxfout to R12) of the same set of contours.

Third file JIN11.dwg is the R12 dwg of the countours.

If you open the R2004toR12.dxf in word and compare it to R12GRN.dxf there is much variance between the two files.

The object here is to produce the R2004 output but finally obtain the R12 standard dxf output

Thanks for your help with this, it is much appreciated.

Regards,
John

[Jeff_M]

OK John,
I was a bit bored tonight and this seemed like the perfect little application for me to try my hand at VB.NET I'm attaching the .exe file for my solution but without knowing how your application reads the dxf file I'm not positive this will work. I do know that the file I create is nearly identical to your R12DXF file. I've removed all references to the entity handles as well as all the header information up to the ENTITIES section. The resulting file does open in R2002, but I no longer have R12 available to test on.

Give it a try and let me know. If you find it useful, I'll post the source code in the VB(A) forum.

Jeff

[Kerry]

hehehehehe

The trick is to ask Jeff a question on any night that Kim is working, yes ?

[Jeff_M]

  Man, between the guys at poker last night telling me what I had in most hands I won (before I showed my cards...) and Kerry hitting the nail on the head, I think i'm getting too predictable......must be time to mix things up a bit.  :kewl:

[jbaxter]

Hi Jeff,

Thanks for your help, it really is appreciated.

I will give the converter a try and let you know Monday, Fri 6pm as I write this in aussie land so will let you know on Monday.

Here is the dxfwes.exe file that is applied to the r12 dxf file first up in the suite of routines in the dtm suite, not sure if it helps.

Regards,
John

[jbaxter]

Hi Jeff,

Okay, first problem when I invoke the dxfconverter.exe is that it fails in its search for a dll file called MSCOREE.DLL

I am using WinNT4.0 if that is any help.

Regards,
JB

[Kerry]

John,
That file is part of the Microsoft .NET Framework.

I'm unsure if you can load .NET onto an NT4 System ...