951parts

i have about 50 drawings here i need in 2D in autocad for school,

when i import the 2d stuff into autocad it doesn't want to hold scale.

when i scale it back up to what it is supposed to be, some parts don't want to cooperate.

just wondering if you guys use a program to go seamlessly from solidworks to autocad.

i am downloading an education version of autodesk's inventor hoping going from solidworks -> inventor -> autocad

might do the trick, but i doubt it.

any replies are cool.
i put it in here since like 70% of you guys use solidworks, and if not. you're probably using PRO/E

nowtype

What file format are you saving as?

I would export the file first as an AutoCAD file and see how AutoCAD opens it. Then try the SolidWorks files. Then I would resort to EPS/AI file. If that doesn't work, I'd start comparing what SolidWorks can Export as that AutoCAD can also import.

wreckedrex

Yup, save as .dwg from solidworks. There are a few scaling options available to you that way, and you can choose the autocad release that you need too. I always go the other way, from ac to sw which is a no brainer, sw has pretty solid .dwg support built in. .dxf would work too, but probably not as well.

Karl Buchka

I can't speak for SW08, but when I need to drop a Solidworks sketch into Autocad or FeatureCAM as a DXF I copy the sketch to the clipboard, paste it into a SW drawing, then save it as a DXF. I've never had any scaling problems doing it that way.

wreckedrex

Good idea, I assumed he was starting from a sw drawing.

legendboy

is the scale difference the same for all drawings?

is it 0.03937007874015748031496062992126 or 25.4? lol

GoGreen

^Good question.

Are you trying to save SW drawings into AutoCAD, or trying to create new AutoCAD drawings from SW models?

When I need to create a dxf from a SW model, I either make a SW drawing with a blank template at 1:1 scale and save it to .dxf, or simply convert the original SW part to sheetmetal and save directly to .dxf. Of course, this is for creating dxf files for CNC fabrication, which may be different from what you're trying to accomplish.

951parts

thanks for the advice guys, there are about 10 of us so we all choose around 5 drawings (i only have to do 4)


so we just all sat down for a few hours to redraw the parts. (they all needed modification anyway)