Need Your help in understanding how to create reference images from dwg file. I've imported a dwg into 3ds max, however I stuck when I'm trying to position them for modeling, e.g. in 3 view format (top, left and front). When I detach them and trying to rotate, I'm getting insane, since they are not matching axes...
It looks like you imported the three 2D views as a single object from an AutoCAD drawing. You need to make the three views separate objects. You can do that in Max by using detach (I think you may have done this) or importing the 3 views as separate objects from AutoCAD (use separate layers for each view).
Once you have the three views of the plane as separate objects you should move the pivots points for each object to the same relative location. e.g., the nose of the front, top and rear views. Once you have done that you can do 90° rotations about principal axes to get the correct orientation. If, for example, the top view is in the XY plane, then rotate the front view by 90° about the x axis and the rear view first by 90° about the x axis and then 90° about the z axis (world axis for all these rotations of course). YOu might find it easiest to use the Transform Type-In for specifying the rotation angles (Edit, Transform Type In...)
When you get the views at the correct orientation you can easily position their pivot to be properly aligned.
If your goal is to create a 3D surface model of the plane you could use the AutoCAD lines as reference or images of the three views. Here's the start of a good tutorial for doing the modeling.
lee.minardi
