[Radiance-general] Radiance plug-in for 3DS

[Jeffrey McGrew]

The trouble is that I have no easy and fast way to bring something from 
Revit into Radiance. It's a pain. I'd love to hear a solution.

I'm using Autodesk Revit (heavily). I model my Building. I export out to 
DWG, and then bring that into 3D Studio, which is smart enough to bring 
along the materials I'm using in Revit into it. I then export out a nice 
3DS file from 3D Studio, and run the 3DS2MGF -> MGF2RAD style of 
conversion, and it gets most of the way through the conversion but then 
hits a 'Unexpected EOF'. If I then render the RAD file things are 
missing, for it didn't finish the conversion. It happens with this 
script as well.

The only other ways I can figure to bring Revit models into Radiance is 
to export them out as a DXF, and do a DXF2RAD, which also crashes and 
doesn't work. Or I can export them out to a DWG, open them in AutoCAD, 
and then export them out as a RAD using TORAD, but this is now broken 
for it hasn't been updated for the newer versions of AutoCAD, which are 
all I've got.

The DXF's out of Revit seem to crash Blender too, sadly. Now, I've been 
told (by Autodesk) that in Revit 9 there will be a fix to make the DXF's 
'better' but I have no idea if it's going to help my troubles, and 
without pulling the Revit models into 3D Studio first you'd have to 
remap all the materials anyways, which will eat up too much time.

So I'm left with two options: Buy the Radiance plug-in for 3D Studio, or 
try to write an Radiance exporter using Revit's API directly (or wait 
until someone else does). Since Radiance isn't my core business, just a 
rendering engine that I enjoy using and would like to use more of, I 
really wish I had an easier way of getting from Revit into Radiance, for 
today it's a totally pain in the rear.

I had hoped that maybe this script would filter out whatever is causing 
that EOF, but it doesn't seem too. Oh, I'm running Radiance on Cygwin, 
maybe I should give this a go on the G4 when I get home and see if I get 
the same result...

Thanks for the script, and sorry for the long story.

Jeffrey McGrew


Jack de Valpine wrote:

> Here is a simple version that was originally posted by John 
> Mardaljevic in response to similar queries ([Radiance-general] ConRAD 
> / 3ds2rad converter - ArchiCAD -> Radiance)
>
> =======================3ds2rad========================
> #!/bin/csh -f
>
> set tds = $1
>
> set nam = $tds:r
>
> 3ds2mgf $tds
>
> mgfilt 
> '#,c,cct,cmix,cspec,cxy,cyl,ed,f,ies,ir,m,o,p,prism,rd,rs,sides,sph,td,ts,v,xf,fh' 
> $nam.mgf | mgf2rad -m mat$nam.rad >! $nam.rad
>
> rm $nam.mgf $nam.inc
> ======================================================
>
> What problems have you had?
>
> -Jack
>
> Jeffrey McGrew wrote:
>
>> Fitzsimmons, Rob wrote:
>>
>>> Used Sketchup and 3ds2rad
>>>  
>>>
>> Hey, anyone know where I can get that 3ds2rad script? I know it's 
>> posted somewhere, but I can't seem to find it anywhere.
>>
>> Also, I'm assuming this script uses the 3ds2mgf -> mgf2rad thing, 
>> right? Just wondering because I've had some trouble with getting some 
>> of my 3ds files into RADs this way.
>>
>> Thanks!
>>
>> Jeffrey McGrew
>>
>> Because We Can, LLC
>> (415) 505-4689
>> www.becausewecan.org
>>
>>
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>>
>
>
>
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-- 

Jeffrey McGrew

Because We Can, LLC
(415) 505-4689
www.becausewecan.org