Save as/ Export .dwg/ .dxf Alias design 2017

[28degrees]

HI

Is it now not possible to save as or export > Active as: .dxg or .dxf?? This feature has been there in Alias Design up untill the 2016 version but is now missing in 2017??

PLease help, this is king of a deal breaker in my workflow.

Thanks

[Florian.Coenen]

Hello @Anonymous,

I am sorry, but at the moment I have no information when the dwg import will be implemented and released.

But it will come back for sure.

Best Regards,

[Anonymous]

Wow just updated to 2017 had to patch for the freeform blend tool..

NO .DWG or DXF import  / export?!!  STILL!??  This is the main reliable way of getting .ai vector art files in and out of Alias. As an industrial designer it's the primary way of cutting Logos into CAD surfaces .

Don't even mention the completely buggy and useless .ai support.

PLEASE bring back ASAP!

[david]

Dear M Coenen,

I agree with all the posts of the last 6 months on the matter.

Not only "save as" and "export" dwg/dxf is no more possible since 2017 but, rather logically, it is no more possible to translate dwg/dxf in the Reference Manager.

It is quite surprising to see that you can deal with Catia, NX, etc formats but not with a format coming from the same editor...

I really wish this will be sorted SOON.

Best

[Anonymous]

Thread started 25th of April 2016...

By the time we have version 2020 perhaps you guys can import and export DWG and DXF files again? (DXF... as in Drawing eXchange Fortmat, right?)

Autodesk want to push everybody into their cloud, Fusion 360, sort of Big Brother if you ask me (I mean why on earth must one upload their designs to Autodesk's server???....)

Now, say you are okay with that, the only way to get your wire-data (lines, curves etc.) into Fusion 360 is: VIA .DWG files ! ! ! ! ! ! ! (since Fusion 360 does not import line data!)

Ridiculousness... 

[jopower1]

The idea to remove this feature is really terrible. Here in school (Pforzheim Universitiy - Transportation Design) I´ve told my students not to install Alias 2017. We are not able to export our files to our CAM-Software (ESTLCAM) and send it to our CNC-Milling-Machine. We can not realize parts of our models, which we have designed in Alias 2017. The items we want to mill, we export the objects with "contours" and ESTLCAM can only read DXF.

We have no problem with 3D-parts, but for 2D-parts (which I can easly put on the CNC-Machine)- there is no solution.

Please bring back this feature. Thank you.

[Anonymous]

Can we get any updates on this feature being implemented back into future Alias releases? I just received another notice to switch to a subscription plan from our maintenance plan and thus effectively giving up and removing our perpetual licenses on older versions of the software.

I don't want to do this and be stuck with 2017, nor advise my company to continue with either maintenance or subscription if Autodesk will continue to remove features from the Alias product line. 

[Florian.Coenen]

Hello @Anonymous, @28degrees, @jopower1, @Anonymous, @david

For your information:

This facility was lost in 2017, as the new Audodesk product-wide translators were being implemented, but has now been restored for both import and export in v2018 version of Alias.

We had to remove it in 2017 release due to extended effort of updating a code change that was done at the DWG side. This updating was a long and massive change that made it impossible to finish it with the 2017 release.

Best Regards,

[Anonymous]

Fantastic news. thanks for the update! @Florian.Coenen

[systembolaget]

---

@Anonymous wrote:
This is, quite frankly, ridiculous .. I have been working with ALIAS since 1997, and have constant workflows between Adobe Illustrstor and ALIAS. I need DXF/DWG in both my workstreams as an automotive transportation designer, AND as an instructor of vehicle packaging at the College for Creative Studies.. I use illustrator to make package drawings of vehicles as occupants in 2D and then send them to ALIAS for 3D model surface development .. Using other products to perform basic translation function is an unacceptable workflow solution for a software version update that used to have this functionality .. For decades ..

---

Fully agree. I have been using and teaching Alias from 1991 onwards. DXF import and export are essentials for all industrial designers. Alias and AutoCAD are owned by the same company. Why interoperability is purposefully removed is beyond understanding.

Another huge problem is that, even though I contacted the customer service several times over the last decade (!), the OBJ format does not export UV coordinates which makes makes mapping surface textures in proper rendering software such as Maxwell Render, Vray or Arnold impossible, requiring to export the Alias model in STP or IGES format to Rhino and then save OBJ files from Rhino. This is all the more bizarre, since the OBJ file format was invented by Alias/Wavefront two decades ago.

[Florian.Coenen]

Hello @systembolaget

I guess you are creating NURBS data in Alias, which is the usual way.

After that, you are storing the data as OBJ. Which will store the NURBS with default settings.

As Alias can store also NUBS data in an obj file, not like Rhino, which is only storing Polygon data within an OBJ file, you are getting now the NURBS only, which of course do not have UVs, as the UVs are already on a NURBS surface.

This is for you the reason to load the NURBS into Rhino, in order to get them tessellated and saved out as Polygons.

See here an Alias NURBS obj in Maya. Here you can clearly see that the texture is applied to the NURBS UVs.

So in order to get UVs of a file, you want to convert them into Polygons.

You can do that by opening up the OBJ export options in Alias and enable "Tessellate". This will store Polygons into the obj file and also the UVs of the data.

See here as screenshot of a tessellated Alias Sphere done during OBJ export and the UVs of the Sphere within Maya:

I hope thats a bit helpful?

In case you want to discuss that further more, please open up another Thread, as this is a bit off topic here.

Regards,

[systembolaget]

Florian, thanks for coming back on this. Unfortunately this does not work.

When you save an OBJ file from Alias and you try to assign surface mappings (not projection or solid mappings which are by nature UV independent) in Maxwell Render, Arnold and Vray, the surface texture is "smeared" across the surface. When we convert a NURBS model from Rhino or Solidworks into an OBJ file, the rendering softwares recognize their UV coordinates and it works.

Please see one of the old threads from 2011 (!) https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/alias-forum/alias-obj-export-and-uv-texture-mapping/m-p/3237650#M2899

[david]

Hello @Florian.Coenen and everyone else.

I'm now running alias Surface 2018.

I've just tried to import a dwg.

It does not work just the same way it was not working with 2017 despite Florian's announcement.

Does it occurs to anyone else or just me????

[david]

@Anonymous

ERRATUM

Import .dwg actually works. What does not work is to translate a .dwg in the reference manager.

So there is a walk around but it is still a shame.

Thanks

[bob55]

DXF and DWG export are supported in Alias 2018. 

[david]

@bob55

yes, as I said in my second post.

However, not when doing "translate" in the reference Manager

[bob55]

Ok I get it now.  We'll take a look at it.

[bob55]

I found the issue and will put the fix into 2018 Update 2.  

Thanks for the post.

[systembolaget]

Could you also put back UV-co-ordinates exported with OBJs so one can render without using Rhino as a file translator in between (see my comment earlier in this thread)? After all, it was an Alias/Wavefront invention and it worked until Alias V9 ; )

[Andreas_Bergmann]

Thanks for bringing back DXF and DWG export, this was crucial.

I experience same issues as systembolaget with UV-coordinates in obj file exported from alias nurbs. For Rendering in external software like octane those objs cannot be used and with huge scenes it's a time very time consuming job to do necessary conversion via maya or 3Dcoat. An up to date obj performance would be great!

thanks!

[Anonymous]

I just installed Autodesk Alias Design 2018 and it wont let me import a DXF or DWG file.