Snap to imported autoCAD geometry?

[Anonymous]

Hey folks

So I'm a novice with 3ds, but good with other CAD softwares (hoping i'll pick it up fine)

I've got existing plans for a building I drew up in autoCAD. My plan was to experiment with creating this building in 3ds.

So I managed to import the autoCAD file without problems. 

However, I quickly found I couldn't just 'draw over' the plans. In my mind I thought I'd be able to create some boxes and whatnot that snap to the wall boundaries on the plans.

Sadly, I can't find a way to get stuff I draw to snap to imported geometry.

In the tutorial video I was following about working with autoCAD in 3ds, he just pulls up the walls as one layer. For a couple of reasons I wanted to avoid doing this with my building and work by creating shapes that follow the very exact geometry of the plans.

How should I go about this If I can't snap to the plans?

Many thanks,

MID

[Steve_Curley · Accepted solution]

Try following the tutorial exactly. If it works (you don't have to keep it - it's just a test) then there's no reason you can't snap to the vertices of the imported object.
Right-click the Snaps toolbar button - make sure just Vertices is selected then OK the dialog. Click and hold the Snaps toolbar button and pick the middle one of the 3 options - 2.5D. Make sure Snaps are enabled (the button should be "in"/highlighted).
If you create your boxes in the Top viewport you won't be able to see the Height (though you should be able to see it in the other viewports).
If you create it in the Perspective viewport then the having created the base, the height may be tricky because of the snaps (shouldn't really use 2/2.5 snaps in Perspective, or 3D in the top/front/left viewports - they may not work as expected).
In either case you can manually adjust the height from the Command Panel (where the Create options are).

If you still cant get it working, save the scene (with just the imported diagram in it), zip it and attach it to a reply so we can take a look.

[Anonymous]

Thank you!

I'd been messing around with snaps but hadn't got to the point of realising
there are more sub-options like 2.5D

Worked like a charm creating my first box.

If I get any further problems I'll let you know, if not - consider this
solved!


-MID