Raster to Vector to DXF for use in AutoCAD, Revit or Navisworks

Luke Johnson

We often have to deal with data that hasn’t always “lived” in our CAD, BIM or Revit world. Take a hand sketch, for example – how can you get that into a format that can easily be used in AutoCAD or Revit? Some PDFs have vector information, which I have described how to access before. But the below workflow takes it one step further – how to get any raster image into a vector format, using a few free tools.

Here’s how to do it, without Adobe Illustrator:

  1. Make your source file (PDF / Scan etc) into bitonal TIFF image (I use Bluebeam and Irfanview in the video, but you could easily save the PDF to image using GSView)
  2. Open in Inkscape
  3. Vectorize using Path – Trace Bitmap… Brightness steps, set to 2.
    Untick: Smooth, Stack scans, Smooth corners and Optimize paths.
    (this step makes the black and white image into lines and outlines)
  4. Save as EPS
  5. Open in GSView (requires Ghostscript and pstoedit)
  6. Save as DXF (using Convert to Vector format). From here, you can get to AutoCAD or Navisworks easily…
  7. Open in AutoCAD
  8. NWCOUT and/or
  9. Append the DXF directly to Navisworks
  10. Scale and position appropriately

Here’s a quick video of the process:

The file sizes at each step look like this:

CADmep Object Enabler Downloads for AutoCAD and Navisworks

Luke Johnson

CADmep Object Enabler is a free downloadable collaboration utility that
enables ObjectDBX host applications (i.e. AutoCAD, AutoCAD LT, Volo-View
and Navis) to view the enhanced objects from CADmep.

Read more:

Autodesk Knowledge Network

Downloads:
The Autodesk Fabrication CADmep Object Enabler applies to both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows.

Autodesk Fabrication CADmep 2014 OE — Build 3.02.600 SP2b (exe – 270334Kb)



Autodesk Fabrication CADmep 2013 Object Enabler (exe
– 246856Kb)

How To Load the Autodesk Navisworks Export Menu in an AutoCAD-based Application

Luke Johnson

You could use NWCOUT, or…

Steps:

  1. At the command line, type MENULOAD.
  2. Press Return.
  3. In the Load/Unload Customizations dialog box, click Browse.
  4. In the Select Customization File dialog box, change the Files of Type to Legacy Menu Template (*.mnu), and browse to the Autodesk Navisworks menu file.
    Note: For AutoCAD 20xx based applications, this file is located under C:Program FilesCommon FilesAutodesk SharedNavisworks2015NWExport20xxlwnw_export.mnu. So, for example, for AutoCAD 2015 based applications, this file is located under C:Program FilesCommon FilesAutodesk SharedNavisworks2015NWExport2015lwnw_export.mnu, and so on.
  5. Click Open.
  6. In the Load/Unload Customizations dialog box, click Load.
    The loaded menu is shown in the Loaded Customization Groups.
  7. Click Close.

Note: you may have to load this from a trusted location to avoid security problems.

From:
Help: To Load the Autodesk Navisworks Export Menu in an AutoCAD-based Application

Constructivity Model Server

Luke Johnson

Interesting, sounds easy… anyone using this?
Constructivity Server does not rely on any external database or web server; it stores all data within a folder structure as native IFC files and index files. Getting a server up and running requires two settings: folder location and web server port.

Download

Video showing merge control:

via https://twitter.com/Opening_Design/status/464435922944425984

Open source BIMserver 1.3.0 released

Luke Johnson

Download it here, quick summary below:

  • IfcOpenShell is now our preferred render engine
  • new feature in this release is the “model checking” capability. We implemented model checking in two places: before data is stored in the database, and before a notification to a remote service is send out
  • With the ‘send notification’ features (find it under settings) an e-mail is send out to project members every time a new revision is checked-in
  • new version of BIMserver is already started and progressing very nice

Read the whole article:
Open source BIMserver | Release 1.3.0 final

via https://twitter.com/bimserver/status/464504361700167680

Export Geometry from Navisworks into Revit (and back again) using only AutoCAD

Luke Johnson

I have previously discussed going from Navisworks to Revit using FBX – 3dsMax – SAT. However, maybe we can do this without 3dsMax. Did you know that vanilla AutoCAD has a FBXIMPORT command?

1) Export FBX from Navisworks – it will ignore Section clipping planes, but it will respect the Hide/Required setting of the view. You can limit polygons (advised for big models)

2) FBXIMPORT in AutoCAD – untick Cameras and Block options as they can be problematic.
Then save DWG. (Note – see below for correct 1:304.8 import scale)
EDIT: If using Navisworks 2015 FBX export to version 2014, with Advanced Options units set to millimeters, you can import to AutoCAD 2015 with 1:1 scale factor (using latest service packs)

3) Open Revit and Link in the DWG.
For this example, I used Origin to Origin as I wanted to try round-tripping back to Navisworks.

Once I exported the NWC and put it back into Revit, I noticed the file was out of scale. Now, I experimented with a few different scale settings, but everytime it was a scale of about 30 or 300 wrong. 1 foot = exactly 304.8 mm. Evidently, the “internal” units of an FBX are feet. So, when we import to AutoCAD we need to use this setting to translate to mm:

This time, when I exported the Revit view to a NWC, and then appended it back to Navisworks – it can came back in exactly the right place. This workflow relies on using the internal Revit Zero point and Origin to Origin linking.

There you go – now you can roundtrip any mesh geometry from Navisworks to AutoCAD to Revit and back to Navisworks 🙂