3D to 2D

[jamesdavies0211]

Hi,

I have some contours of a large terrain which came from a 3D model, I'd like them flattened to create some 2d drawings with a building on top therefore ideally these would have no Z value.

Is there any way to do this? The flatten command seems to take either too long or freeze given the size of the terrain. Something like the Make2D command in Rhino I suppose is what I'm after.

I have 2 different dwg files, one with the dam I am building on as a solid and one as just line work depending on which file is going to work easier 🙂

Thanks! 

[paullimapa]

I used the Plot to Pdf & PdfImport method to get a 2d dwg of the contours.

I first set UCS to World and changed VSCurrent to 2dWireframe.

I used one of AutoCAD's built-in Dwg to Pdf.pc3 and added the largest custom paper size possible: 5000 x 5000

Next I Plotted the portion of the drawing using Shade plot of Legacy hidden with that custom paper size at 1mm in = 1 unit:

Then in a new dwg I used the PDFImport File option to accepted the default settings I've checked:

I then setup the UNITS & origin of this new 2d drawing to match with your original 3d dwg.

Lastly I changed Layer PDF_0 to Red color so you can tell the difference when xref attach the 2d dwg onto 3d dwg for comparison

Then I plotted

[jamesdavies0211]

Oh wow this is a really smart workflow. Would it then be possible to sort of tile it?

[paullimapa]

Typically I would PLOT the entire drawing to a particular scale. Then scale it back up when importing it back into a new dwg. But due to the fact that there are so many slight curves in the contours, the scaling may end up being off. But if you must have the entire contour as a 2d dwg, you can definitely divide it into say 4 quadrants which would allow each quadrant to fit inside the 5000 x 5000 maximum paper size at a scale of 1:1. You can use the View command to save each quadrant using the Window option as a view with a unique name. Then PLOT specifying the Plot area as each View. Finally use the PDFImport File option to bring in each quadrant into a new dwg & recompose as the complete contour. Have fun!!!