Posted by Dave Lock on June 26, 2001 at 11:30:31:In Reply to: Re: Which CAD program to purcahse? posted by David Maino on June 24, 2001 at 18:06:50:
I agree that it is great to model in Autocad & then export it to 3DS Max to do the "tricky stuff". But do you spend as much time as me tearing your hair out at the incompatibility?
Firstly, from my experience only ACIS models (you called them true solids) make it from Acad to Max - most of the time. Secondly, when they do make it into Max ok, the model has about 500 times more polygon faces than it needs to, making it a nightmare to do sub object alterations. Thirdly, the "Autocad to Max import table" in the Max 4 help files shows 27 object types that are supposed to make it from Acad to Max, but only 1 or 2 actually do succesfully.
Unfortunately though, Max is crap for precise modelling where you don't want to deform and modify a primitive. Autocad's easy because you can basically draw 2D entities in 3D space, convert them to a polyline & make it a 3D solid. If only it would then export to Max seamlessly!
I use Autocad 2000 & 3DS Max 4.Does anyone know of a better solution, or what I'm doing wrong?