[Radiance-general] Radout

[Jia Hu]

Hello:

Currently, I mainly use Revit and Rhino to convert fbx to obj, following
Jack's advice. It works well. If you stick to AutoCAD, besides using torad
or dxf2rad or radout, you may also consider the following approaches.

     (1) export dxf/dwg from AutoCAD
     (2) import dxf to Ecotect (free of charge for student version) OR
import dwg to REVIT (free of charge for student version)
     (3) export rad from Ecotect OR export fbx from Revit.
        (3.1) if you get fbx file, you should use FBX converter provided by
autodesk (free) to get an older obj file and then use Rhino or others (not
sure) to rebuild surface normal because there is likely someting wrong with
the obj file directly exported by revit.
        (3.2) if you export rad directly from Ecotect, you should assign
materials in Ecotect to get .mat file.

Cheers,
Jia


On Fri, Aug 6, 2010 at 5:21 PM, Jack de Valpine <jedev at visarc.com> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I would agree with Christopher on Rhino and Sketchup. Blender does export
> obj also and does seem to be a robust application, although my main
> experience with it has been testing it to process obj geometry.
>
> I think the challenge is figuring out a suitable workflow for those who
> need to use Autocad for whatever reason.... However the traditional options
> (TORAD and RADOUT) are pretty ancient at this point and have the following
> problems:
>
>   * TORAD - if I recall correctly this still only deals with surface
>     geometry which is fine if you know how to model this way...
>   * RADOUT - same issue as TORAD with respect to geometry and the last
>     version of Autocad that it could run in was Autocad 2000
>
> For me I think that the most suitable intermediate geometry format is OBJ.
> It is open and there are lots of applications that can read and write the
> format. The challenge is figuring out how to get from Autocad to OBJ.
>
>
> -Jack
>
> --
> # Jack de Valpine
> # president
> #
> # visarc incorporated
> # http://www.visarc.com
> #
> # channeling technology for superior design and construction
>
>
>
>  Christopher Rush wrote:
>
>> If you want to stick with AutoCAD, have you tried TORAD.lsp that has been
>> posted (with modification as required for your version)?
>>
>> My 2 cents on other options...
>>
>> I would comment that Rhino and Sketchup both produce good OBJ files that
>> can be converted with obj2rad. You will have to start paying attention to
>> material assignments (instead of or in addition to layers that you would
>> have been used to in AutoCAD). Rhino is probably more expensive, but handles
>> curved geometry much better, and has a more flexible command line interface
>> similar to AutoCAD. Sketchup focuses on being more intuitive, but can be
>> limited in some ways like coordinate entry. Sketchup has the su2rad plugin,
>> and Rhino now has DIVA for additional options to get models into Radiance
>> based simulations.
>>
>> Lars has suggested FormZ, which seems comparable to Rhino but maybe less
>> popular.
>>
>> There is also Blender, which is an open source software similar to 3DSMax.
>> It claims to export to OBJ, so may be a good try for a free test before
>> putting money into another modeling package.
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