EXPORTING AUTOCAD MEP 2014 COMPONENTS (e.g. DUCTS) TO IGES

[Anonymous]

I need to export my AutoCAD MEP to IGES because our client uses SolidWorks.  Previously, our client has exported to IGES and I imported the IGES file to .dwg format successfully.  Great!

When I export my 3D AutoCAD MEP 2014 model to IGES, I select the location, select the objects to export.  I then don’t get a message and no file is created.

I then export some individually different types of objects, e.g. 3d solid, duct or duct fitting, block (drawn in 3D), array (not -array), and for those that did create successfully, I got the following results upon importing back into .dwg format:

Array (anonymous blocks, *U123) — no problem

Block (drawn in 3D), including block in a block, whether uniformaly scaled or not — no problem

Supply Duct — “Specified file is invalid or unsupported”

Multi-view part (Volume Control Damper) — “Specified file is invalid or unsupported”

Can anyone help?

Many thanks in advance!

Tim.

P.S.:  We are under a non-disclosure agreement so I cannot upload the project that I am working on.

[Laks-Autodesk]

I believe you're using the IGESEXPORT command to export the entities to .igs or .iges file format. This should work well with most of AutoCAD objects. List of all the supported entities is available in the IGESEXPORT conversion table section in Help.

[Keith.Brown]

You might try converting your AutoCAD MEP Design to 3D solids first using the CONVERTTO3DSOLIDS command.  If you chose to delete the original objects (you should) just make sure you are working in a copy of the original design.  You don't want to accidently delete all of the MEP objects in your drawing and then save it.  You will have no way of getting them back.