Tutorials BimCraft help Walkthroughs
See a DWG or DXF drawing in 3D
Switch a drawing's model space to 3D to see elevations, thickness, 3D faces, meshes and blocks, orbit round it, and see what is not drawn yet.
Written for BimCraft 0.3. The same help is inside the app: press F1.
What you'll do
Look at a drawing's model space in 3D. Lines and polylines sit at their real heights, objects with a thickness stand up as walls, and 3D faces, meshes and 3D blocks show as surfaces you can orbit round. The sheets stay 2D.
Steps
- Open a DWG or DXF. See View a DWG or DXF drawing.
- Click 3D in the bar above the drawing, or press 33.
- Wait a moment the first time: the status line says "Building the drawing in 3D…", then how many lines and faces it shows.
- Orbit, pan and zoom (see the table below).
- Click a view in the second bar: Iso, Top, Bottom, Front, Back, Left or Right.
- Click Perspective to switch between a perspective and a parallel view.
- Click Extents or press FF to see the whole drawing again.
- Click 3D again, press 33, or click Model or a sheet tab to go back to 2D.
What you should see
- Model space in 3D, Z up, in the drawing's own colors. Faces are a shade lighter than their edges.
- Layers you turn off in Layers disappear from the 3D view too.
- On the right: the number of lines and faces, the size of the drawing in X, Y and Z, In the 2D view only and Not drawn yet.
Moving around
Mouse
| To | Do this |
|---|---|
| Orbit | Drag with the middle button, or with the left button |
| Pan | Drag with the right button, or hold ⇧Shift and drag |
| Zoom | Scroll the wheel; it zooms toward what is under the pointer |
| See it all | Extents or FF |
| Look from a side | Click a face, edge or corner of the view cube in the bottom-right corner |
The view cube can be swapped for an axis icon, or hidden, in Settings. See BimCraft settings.
Mac, Mouse
On a trackpad, swipe with two fingers to orbit, hold ⇧Shift and swipe to pan, and pinch to zoom.
Touch
Drag with one finger to orbit. Pinch with two fingers to zoom, and move them together to pan.
What is drawn in 3D
| In the drawing | In 3D |
|---|---|
| Lines, 3D polylines | At their real heights |
| Polylines, circles, arcs, ellipses | In their own plane, at their elevation, tilted when the drawing tilts them |
| Thickness on lines, polylines, circles and arcs | Walls of that height; circles are closed top and bottom |
| 3D faces, polyface meshes, polygon meshes | Shaded surfaces with their visible edges |
| Blocks | Placed, turned and scaled in 3D, nested blocks too |
| Hatches | Their outlines |
| Plain 2D linework | Flat, where it was drawn |
In the 2D view only
Text, attributes, multileaders, pictures and hatch patterns are counted under In the 2D view only. See them on the Model tab or the sheets.
Not drawn yet
Solids and surfaces stored as ACIS bodies (3D solids, bodies, regions and surfaces) and subdivision meshes are listed under Not drawn yet with how many there are. They are skipped, not guessed at.
Common mistakes
- Everything looks flat. The drawing is 2D: its lines have no height. Click Front to check; a flat drawing shows as a line.
- A solid model shows nothing. Solids made with a solid modeler are ACIS bodies, listed under Not drawn yet. Export the model as IFC or as 3D faces from the program that made it.
- The drawing is a tiny cluster in the middle. Something far away in model space, such as an old copy of a plan, makes the extents large. Zoom in with the wheel where you want to look.