DataCAD How-To's



HOW TO TURN YOUR 2D DRAWINGS INTO 3D MODELS

Rick Morse, of DataCAD LLC, gave this step-by-step method to convert your 2D drawings to a true 3D model. As anyone who has worked with DataCad in both 2D and 3D knows, DataCad's 2D and 3D capabilities are essentially separated from one another. In building a 3D model, generally the only thing your 2D floor plans are good for is as a "base" drawing to guide the construction of the slabs and blocks that will make up the 3D model. Well, in his typical endeavor to find a better, faster and more elegant method, Rick Morse has once again stepped up to show us that DataCad can do more than we ever guessed.

  1. Copy the plan of your 2D walls to a new layer (let's call it Wall-2D). You don't need to do the interior walls if you're only making an exterior model.
  2. Make the Wall-2D layer Active Only.
  3. Get rid of window and door openings and weld the walls back together (or use the Remove Doors/Windows option in the Architct menu), so that you have a continuous 2-line wall that defines the exterior of your building.
  4. Change to ISOMETRIC view (makes it easier to see the extruded heights of your walls).
  5. In the 2D Edit Menu choose Change/Z-Hgt, and enter the height of your walls. In this case let's use 10 feet. Pick all of your walls. If you have stairs, low walls, etc., to extrude, type a new Z-Hgt and pick these entities.
  6. Your walls are now extruded into 2-1/2D entities -- they are not true 3D yet, so we can not put 3D doors and windows in.
  7. Go to the 3D Edit Menu and choose Explode/ToPgons. Pick the walls by area, fence or entity. Now you have TRUE 3D PLANES (not slabs or blocks) which can support the addition of voids, 3D windows and doors, etc. You also have sharp corners without overlapping slab edges.
  8. Go back to ORTHO view and turn on the 2D plan layer so you can see where the windows and doors are to be placed.
  9. Go to the 2D Edit Menu and choose Toolbox/AEC_MODL. Set the variables for the type of windows and doors you want.
  10. Insert your windows and doors in your 3D walls.  Voids will automatically be cut into the walls at the doors and windows.
  11. Remember: when you insert a void in a plane you must maintain at least a sliver of plane between the void and the edge of the plane -- you can not put a void at the very edge of the plane. Rick Morse calls it the "bologna skin" -- it's like that skin on the edge of a slice of bologna when you take a peice of meet out from the edge.
  12. Now you can use Roofit to put a roof on your building.
  13. If you need to extend your 3D walls up to meet the point on a gable, use ClipCube to isolate one gable on the building, change to an elevation view that allows you to see the gable, then in the 3D Entity Menu use Polygon/Vertical/Add Vertices. Pick the center of the wall plane under the gable of the roof, and stretch it to the underside of the gable roof.
  14. When editing planes by snapping in 3D (tricky to do), try using Markers under the 3D Entity Menu.