Use of Autocad 3d faces in lieu of re-triangulating

[eucyblues]

Hi Lars - I'm finding that using Acad 3d faces and re-triangulating to 3d faces for contours doesn't give the same results as the original faces and I would like to 'trick' CADTools into accepting the Acad 3d faces as a surface - can this be done somehow??? - it would save a lot of work

Thanks

[eucyblues]

OOPS - forget that post - I found the command to use the Acad data - sorry

[Lars]

Great!

There are a couple of ways to read existing triangulated data into CadTools. Retriangulating contours in CadTools  would give a different surface than the original and many times that is not what is preferred. Surfaces triangles (3Dpolylines or 3Dfaces) from other software can be imported directly to CadTools by using the “Import Surface” in the “Edit Surface” command.

This is a method that I use myself. Usually I use Bentleys InRoads for my Civil work and the surfaces can be huge. Many times I only need a small part of the original surface and therefore I use the “Import Surface” command to get a smaller piece to work with in CadTools. Keeping the “Edit Surface” form open and importing every new piece of the surface with same name (replacing old surface file) makes it easy to work with huge surfaces.

Most surface commands in CadTools have the possibility to recognize that the surface file has been changed  and then automatically reload the surface. The same thing is applicable for surface commands forms, keep them open and when the surface file has been changed it will ask to reload the file. By always using same name for the surface file (temp.tsd) you can speed up your work in tricky parts of the design.

Hope this is understandable!