[Radiance-general] dxf2rad

[Jeffrey McGrew]

On Oct 23, 2007, at 12:39 PM, Rob Guglielmetti wrote:

> Yeah, I got two models recently, one built in SketchUp and the  
> other in Revit (same project, same model extents), and the Revit  
> one was literally unusable in AutoCAD, much less Radiance.

Best way to get a Revit model into Radiance is to use 3D Studio Max  
or Viz.

When you export a Revit model to DWG, the material information is  
buried in there but not easily accessible to AutoCAD. This is because  
99% of the exports to AutoCAD from Revit are meant for drafting  
background to send off to other people. So it groups things by what  
they are based upon the AIA layer standard by default. While you can  
edit that, you can't make it do a 'by material' export to AutoCAD  
layers. Well, at least not easily.

If you file link the same DWG into Max or Viz, all the materials come  
along, and you get a very usable model. You then in turn export that  
to .OBJ, and then use OBJ2RAD to make it into a Radiance file. I've  
done it several times with good results: http://www.becausewecan.org/ 
node/190

All in all the Revit models themselves tend to be very clean and  
'watertight' so they work pretty well.

Sucks that you have to use Max or Viz as a file converter to get from  
Revit to Radiance. But I beleive that in the near future more file  
export options will be included in Revit, so that might change soon.

As for BIM being disruptive, I agree wholeheartedly. As someone who's  
done a lot with it over the last six years, I see potential there for  
it to change a lot of how our industry works.

Hope this helps,

Jeffrey McGrew
www.becausewecan.org