Exporting DXF to 3D office

[Ryane Edwards]

I am exporting linework as a dxf and importing the same dxf into 3d Office.
If i tick "colours by layer" the linework shows up white in 3d office and in project layers and management. I am able to set colours individually however in project layers and management, export as .tp3 and everything goes across as colours on the machine (this is very time consuming!).

If i don't tick "colours by layer" the linework shows up as colour in 3d office plan view. When i go into project layers and management all layers show as white and I individually change every layer to colour, export as .tp3 but all linework on the machine is white?!

I then tried to export a topcon linework file .ln3 and i cant retain the colours and layer names. it exports as colour but changes all layers to colour names?!

Can someone help find a solution to exporting linework to 3d office retaining layer names and colours so i can just export a .tp3 to a machine with out the laborious task of changing individual layer colours?!

Ta

[Joel Allsop]

"Colours by layer" means exactly that. Whatever colour is set on the layer in the dwg/dxf, then that is what the element will display as.

If there are no predefined layers in the dwg/dxf, then by default new layers are created with the colour white.

If you leave colours by layer ticked off, then the element will retain it's colour from 12d. However, if the layers aren't predefined in the dwg/dxf, then again the layer colour will be white.

To change all of the above, you will need to create a template (DWT) file, that conatins all of your predefined layers and colours. Note, the layer names must match exactly the model names being exported from 12d.

To avoid any hassles of Model and Layer names not matching, then you'll also want an Acad Mapping File. This will take the string names in 12d, and map them to the appropriate layers in the DWG/DXF.

[Lee Gregory]

What is 3D Office ?

[paul hardwick]

3D office is a free Topcon software to manage machine control data.

[Michael Gunter]

3D Office, Topcon's little windows program the guys use to export to machine control.

I then tried to export a topcon linework file .ln3 and i cant retain the colours and layer names. it exports as colour but changes all layers to colour names?!

The problem is the Topcon software only supports colour by layer, 12d supports colour by element, the only way we can ship the ln3 file retaining the colour of the element is to sort them into layers of the same colour hence the renaming of the layers.

The only alternative would be to split each model into sub layers with the layer name as model name and colour, e.g. "Road 1 red" but if the data source is multiple models you could end up with a bucket load of layers.

I'll add that to my todo list, Layer by model and colour for a future version.

[Lee Gregory]

And what do you do with multi-coloured strings?

I thought colour by layer went out with the dark ages before all the Road Authorities in Australia went to string names.

[paul hardwick]

I don't see the need in spending to much time on the Ln3 format when they can take DWG/DXF and we already have acad mapfiles to separate the data into layers by colour...etc

[Greg Spillane]

Is this possible, can't seem to find the file type in 12d - assume it's a topcon format.

Thanks,

[paul hardwick]

[Survey->Topcon->Write LN3 file]

[Greg Spillane]

[Survey->Topcon->Write LN3 file]

Thanks Paul
Turns out we don't have the survey model though.