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Dxf2rad User Manual (0.9)

• Synopsis
• Description
• Installation
• Options
• Examples
• Requirements
• Caveats
• Bugs
• Author
• See Also
• Legalese

dxf2rad [options] dxffile [radfile]

Where options may include:
    -h        help (show this text and exit)
    -H        display copyright statement
    -v        verbose (repetition increases verbosity)
    -s scale  multiply all dimensions with scale
    -ennn     exclude entity types
    +ennn     include entity types
              Where each 'n' is one out of (with defaults):
              a  + 3D FACEs
              b  + Extruded and Flat 2D SOLIDs
              c  + Extruded and Flat TRACEs
              d  + Extruded 2D PLINEs
              e  + Wide 2D PLINEs
              f  - Closed 2D PLINEs as Polygons
              g  + 3D MESHes
              h  + POLYFACEs
              i  + Extruded LINEs
              j  + Extruded ARCs
              k  + Extruded and Flat CIRCLEs
              l  - POINTs as Sphreres
    -d dtol   distance tolerance for arc subdivision (default 0.1)
    -a atol   angle tolerance for arc subdivision (default 15.0°)

If radfile is omitted or is the single character '-', then
the output will go to stdout (in which case verbosity is reset to 0).

DXF entities can be filtered by command line options.

Output primitives will have modifiers based on the layer of each entity in the form "l_<layer>". Floating layers within blocks are fully supported. "Funny characters" in the layer name will replaced by an underscore each.

Installation

-h

Print a short usage description to the console and exit.

-H

Print the copyright and free license statements and exit.

-v

Verbose: Report progress on standard error (repeating this option increases verbosity).

-s scale

All output will be scaled by the scale factor.

-d dtol

Distance Tolerance for arc approximation. Arc entities and arc segments of polylines have to be meshed for the use in RADIANCE. The value you enter here specifies how smooth these meshes will appear in the final image. Higher values will make smoother surfaces. The default of 0.1. It is recommended to make test for optimised settings balancing file size and visual accuracy, since the optimal settings depends on the size and scale of your model.

-a atol

Angle Tolerance for arc approximation. The orientation of neighbouring mesh elements will not differ by more than this amount in degrees. The default is 15.0 degrees, which usually gives reasonable results. The effect of this setting is independent of model size and complexity. Please note that very low values (eg. below 2.0 degrees) can lead to unreasonably big output files and may even crash Autocad when running out of memory.

-s scale

Output scaling factor. Output geometry will be scaled according to this factor. Radiance preferrably uses international (SI) units, ie. meters.

+e str

Include entities

-e str

Exclude entities

str is a string of characters out of the following, which specifies which entity types are to be included or excluded. By default all entities that define a surface in Autocad (opaque for the hide and shade/render commands) are included. All polygons keep their orientation as created in Autocad determined by the right hand rule as explained in the RADIANCE tutorial. Entities extruded by thickness will be inverted if their thickness value (or "PDSIZE" for point entities) is negative.

a - 3D FACEs

3dfaces will be split to two triangular polygons if not planar.

b - Extruded and flat 2D SOLIDs

Solids will appear as a single polygon or as a box if the thickness is not zero.

c - Extruded TRACEs

Traces will appear as a single polygon or as a box if the thickness is not zero.

d - Extruded 2D PLINEs

2d-polylines with a thickness different from zero will appear as a set of polygons. With R14 and Autocad 2000, this includes lightweight polylines.

e - Wide 2D PLINEs

2d-polylines with a starting width different from zero set in their header entity (not the vertexes!) will appear as a polygon following the trace of the polyline with a constant width. This option will override the polygon option for polylines that match both categories. Together with a thickness and the respective option set this will will result in a kind of a quadrilateral worm. With R14 and Autocad 2000, this includes lightweight polylines.

f - Closed 2d PLINES as polygons

2d-polylines with the closed flag set in their header entity will appear as a polygon of the shape of the polyline. polylines with a width will not follow this rule if wide 2D-PLINEs are selected as well. Together with a thickness and the respective option set this will result in a prismatic volume of the shape of the polyline. This option is off by default. With R14 and Autocad 2000, this includes lightweight polylines.

g - 3D MESHes

The Faces of 3d-polygon meshes will appear as a set of polygons ignoring spline fits of any kind. Nonplanar faces will be split into two triangles.

h - POLYFACEs

The faces of polyface meshes will appear as a set of polygons. Nonplanar faces will be split into two triangles.

i - Extruded LINEs

Lines with a thickness different from zero will appear as a single polygon each.

j - Extruded ARCs

Arcs with a thickness different from zero will be segmented according to the given arc tolerance values.

k - Extruded and flat CIRCLEs

Circles will appear as a ring with a inner radius of zero or as a cylinder/tube with a ring at either end if their thickness is different from zero.

l - POINTs as Spheres

Point entities will appear as spheres or bubbles depending on either their thickness (if any) or else on the value of the Autocad system variable "PDSIZE". if the result is zero, then the entity is ignored. This option is off by default.

    dxf2rad input.dxf output.rad

    dxf2rad -s 2 +e fl input.dxf output.rad

    dxf2rad -a 5 -e abcdeghik input.dxf -

Models created with the AME Solid modelling package must have surfaces defined with the command "SOLMESH". Otherwise they consist of only wireframe information wich cannot be extracted by Radout.

The "SOLID" entities in Autocad, which can be extracted with the "Extruded and flat Solids" option, have nothing to do with solid modelling, AME or ACIS. These are a feature out of the 2D days of Autocad and are just flat quadrilateral faces which appear solidly filled when viewed from top. They form quadrilateral prisms if extruded, which can only be done in a right angle to their ground plane.

Entities created with the ACIS solid modeller or custom entity types defined by any other 3rd party application ("proxies", previously "zombies") are ignored.

Bugs

Author

Tutorial and manual pages of RADIANCE 3.1, Synthetic Imaging System. Gregory Ward Larson, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, Berkeley, CA.

Legalese

   dxf2rad
   Copyright © 2000 Georg Mischler, Munich, Germany.
 
   Permission to use, copy, and distribute this software for
   any purpose and without fee is hereby granted, provided that
   the above copyright notice appears in all copies, that both
   that copyright notice and this permission notice appear in
   all supporting documentation and that no part of this software
   and its documentation is sold for profit or is included in
   any package sold for profit.
   Sale of this software and its documentation or any part of it
   for profit or inclusion of any part of this software or its
   documentation in a package sold for profit requires the prior
   written consent of the copyright holder.
 
   THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED
   WARRANTY. ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF FITNESS FOR ANY PARTICULAR
   PURPOSE AND OF MERCHANTABILITY ARE HEREBY DISCLAIMED.