DXF problem with sections in autocad

[luca lucarelli]

Hi! I am having trouble with a DXF file in autocad, can you help me?

I have a cloud which represents a road and I created some sections (profiles) along this road. Very good, I have my sections in CC. All the sections are parallel to the Z axis (If I put my point of view along the Z axis and watch the lines on the XY plane they only appear as straight lines), while they can be clearly and correctly seen as polylines in X,Y. Being the road not parallel to X or Y, the sections too are not parallel to X and Y.
I exported these sections in a DXF file, so that in CAD I can draw on these lines.
Now, in Autocad 2011 they can only be seen as straight lines, as if they were 2D lines lying on the XY plane (such view corresponds to what I see in CC if I put myself on the Z axis. Is there anything I am missing in the .dxf file generation? Is it a compatibility issue? (but I can't see how to choose the version when I create the DXF file) Anything else?

Thank you in advance!

[daniel]

As far as I know, some CAD programs don't handle 3D polylines indeed. They only consider them as 2D lines. This is probably what happens here.

[cdordoni]

Luca,

Can you post the DXF file?

It is true that some programs do not handle 3D polylines; however, I believe AutoCAD should read 3D polyline entities.

[cdordoni]

I did a simple test with one section, and I do get a 3D polyline which imports into several 3D cad programs I use.

[luca lucarelli]

Good morning and thank you for your replies.

I generated a simplified (much lighter) version of my set of sections, which I send as zipped file. I really hope you can tell me how to correctly see them in CAD!

[cdordoni]

Here's what I get in IntelliCAD, which is very similar to AutoCAD. I rotated the view so you can see the profiles. You should get the same thing in AutoCAD. I saved the file as a DWG in AutoCAD 2010 format attached to this message.

Profili test.png (104.74 KiB) Viewed 8726 times

[luca lucarelli]

Great! This works! Thank you very much cdordoni for your interest and for the conversion.

Today I could discuss and check with a proficient CAD user as well, and he told me that actually the DXF file generated by CC is correct in 3D (for example, I could import it in the program I used to generate the source point cloud and they match); the only issue is about enabling the proper views in CAD, isometric view in this case.
Also, the file opens without units, so either they have to be properly set while opening the file (metres), or setting the scale in the file once opened after some known value (10 metres spacing in this case), and they match the original point cloud.

Hope this can help a lot of people.