Is anyone out there proficient enough at both Rhino and Autocad to help us streamline the process of exchanging files between the two programs? When saving out a dwg from Autocad is there any way to configure it so that the layout drawings (in Autocad) come through as layout drawings in Rhino along with all of the notes and dimensions that are on there?
Our initial attempt failed.
Thank you.
As far as I know, there are minor editing works needed. Dimension is not a problem. You can simply change them in both programs. The problem is http://mcneel.myjetbrains.com/youtrack/issue/RH-29332
If you open the file in Rhino (not import) they should come in.
Thank you, @SamPage. Opening (rather than importing) the dwg file worked. The layout drawings created in Autocad poured in. The problem , however, is that the dimensions (which were in paperspace in Autocad and we want to keep in paperspace in Rhino) are measuring the paperspace distance between objects and not modelspace.
Also, fractions like 1/2 came in as 12 (without the /). Any thoughts?
For the vinculum not showing in the fraction, I’m going to guess that is because in AutoCAD you are using stacked fractions, which Rhino does not have. Perhaps in AutoCAD, try changing the dimension style so it no longer uses stacked fractions.
As for the dimensions not showing the proper scale, that seems like a larger headache. The obvious but quite tedious solution is to make a dimension style for each scale you have a detail for, then change the length factor of that style so they show the correct length. This seems quite time consuming and error prone, perhaps someone (@lowell?) has a better method to suggest.
Sam
I don’t know a better way.
We just don’t have an exact equivalent in Rhino to use for that.
I really hope we can work something out in v6, but I don’t know right now.
Lowell
Thank you, guys. That should work.
Hey, this topic is a bit old… but opening the cad file(.dwg) instead of importing was the answer. I get everything from AutoCAD’s paperspace. Awesome tip.
hi @cosmas maybe you want to give that solution rather to SamPage?
he actually answered that in the third post, to be fair 
Well who knew you could “open” rather than “import” a dwg file? What’s the difference exactly? FWIW I opened one of my dwgs and the layouts came in with all the dimensions reading correctly. The only problem off the bat was the size of the leader arrows and some bizzare block at the bottom of the layout! (see attached)
Dennis
When you import a file, (dwg or any file including 3dm), Rhino already has a file open with lots of settings already configured - unit systems, scales, blocks and styles in tables, etc. Those conditions aren’t changed by importing another file, so they will affect the way the other file looks.
When you open rather than import, Rhino starts with a clean slate, so to speak, and uses all the best information it can get from the file being opened.
If you have examples of things that don’t look right when you open dwg (or any) files, we can look at them and see if there’s something that can be fixed. The bulk of things seem to be working ok now, and things that don’t, like your arrow heads, may be because of a case that I just haven’t seen or fixed yet.
I’ve been using a lot of Rhino and Autocad over the last few weeks, when opening a DWG file in Rhino I have noticed the text labels are missing from the drawing in the layout window ?
