Export schemes are now fully implemented on Rhino BETA for Mac.
More on Picture Objects Improvements
In the Rhino BETA, saving and exporting to DWG/DXF formats will save texture files, used by Picture objects, to a subfolder at the same location where the DWG/DXF files are written.
How does this work?
In Rhino BETA, when saving and exporting to DWG/DXF formats from files that have Picture objects, the Picture images are extracted and saved to a file.
The subfolder where files are saved is named filename_images under the folder location where the DWG/DXF file is saved. filename is the name of your DWG/DXF file.
For example, if your file is ABC.DWG, then the image subfolder will be ABC_images.
Why is this important?
It is very convenient to have linked images exported, so that AutoCAD can resolve them as External Reference images. When the DWG/DXF is opened in AutoCAD or a number of compatible products, the External Reference image path can be resolved and the image loaded.
When the DWG/DXF is opened in DWG TrueView 2026, Autodesk Viewer, Autodesk 2026, and the subfolder is available in the directory where the images files are located, the images are found and loaded as External Reference image.
For example, here is the image attached as a Picture in Rhino and then exported from Rhino to a DWG. The scheme 2018 Natural was used. Then the DWG was then opened in AutoCAD and the picture was resolved as an External Reference image.
Note: Only the textures assigned to Picture objects are saved by DWG/DXF export. The textures may come from Picture materials or other material types that are deliberately assigned to Picture objects. The texture on a Picture material won’t be exported if it is assigned to a rectangular plane.
Hi McNeel team, thanks for the great news about the DXF/DWG export improvements in Rhino 9 WIP! The enhancements you announced—like better handling of textures, display colors, hyperlinks, and layer descriptions—are really appreciated.
I was wondering: do you also plan to implement the possibility to export layouts, with all detail views—essentially having Rhino automatically generate a kind of Make2D for each detail view directly into DWG/DXF?
Since many users in both architecture and engineering workflows would like to export complete, editable layouts to CAD (instead of using workarounds such as print-to-PDF and re-import), it would be great to know if this is already on your roadmap.
In short:
Is the upcoming Flatten to 2-D functionality planned to extend to layouts, so they can be exported directly to DWG/DXF?
If yes, in which Rhino 9 release or update can we expect it?
If not, is there any recommended temporary workflow?
Thanks a lot for your continuous effort to improve CAD interoperability—looking forward to your updates!
1- as said previously by @paolo, are you planning to enhance layout compatibility ? importing a dwg file in rhino brings the layouts of the dwg file. But the other way around is not true. Meaning, can we have and option to export rhino layout in the dwg file, so that you get the layouts in the layout tab when opening the dwg file in autocad ?
At the office, rhino has become our primary design tool (architecture urban planing and landscape office based in paris). But the dwg-3dm workflow still have a few (small) issues :
2 - units. If my rhino file is setup in meters, and that i export a dwg, it will land in autocad in millimeters. This is not a huge problem but makes it a bit tedious when working with a lot of file and having to export them, change units to meters in every file, and send it to an engineer or a client.
3- xref and etransmit equivalent features. In autocad, you can link files as x-ref and export the whole package to an etransmit. In the smae fashion as an indesign assembly file. In rhino, we use worksessions or insertions to link files. But when we have to send work to a client (for instance) we send them the files separatly. It would be great if we had an option to send an assembly file (for instance an assembly of a worksession file) that an external user can open and have every file linked correctly to the main file.
Wanted/needed: The option to NOT import Xrefs. The dwg’s I import usually have lots of xrefs I don’t want or need, please give us the option to not import them.
Thank you for the work you are putting in enhancing interoperability with the dwg format !
My comments are specific to the context of rhino being used in an architecture, urban design, landscape and mobility office. AEC.
We have built two plugins to answer these different issues we are currently having with rhino’s compatibility with DWG :
Units :
when exporting a dwg, if openened in autocad AEC, the units will Always be setup in millimiters by default. The Reason is because the DWG writer embeded Inside of rhino does not setup the variable for the AEC units. We have solved this by using acadsharp, an open source Library. The way we do it is that we use AEC Template files as base for every export that goes through the commande. In my opinion this could be solve in a better way through ODA’s SDK, wich i Believe can directly write AEC units in a dwg file.
Hatches :
Rhino’s native dwg writer does not export the area property of hatches. This is a critical issue, especially in the context of urban design and landscape projects. Partners often need to check Drawings in dwg format and quantify areas using hatches. Rhino Simply does not write the area on hatches when exporting them. We solved that issue by making or own dwg exporter using acadsharp’s open source Library.
layouts : rhino does not write layouts when exporting a dwg. We made our own layout exporter and we also tested the one built by asuni’s visualarq plugin.
Etransmits, worksessions, xrefs :
worksessions are a great feature but the way the user needs to interact with a worksession and the possibilities it offers when sending multiple files are not optimal.
When it comes to the user, it would be much more convenient to have a “link manager”/“worksession manager” that is usable through a dockable panel. We built that interface at the office. We know that you are working on a new UI for this feature in rhino 9.
When it comes to sending multiple files, rhino is lacking a killer feature : etransmit.
We built our own etransmit using c# but the way it interacts with rhino files is not optimal (it opens multiple rhino instances in the background to export every file linked to the master worksession file and then creates a folder packaging every file linked to the worksession. But we did not manage to automatically recreate linkes through xref when opening the resulting dwgs). It would a huge progress if we could have a feature like autocad’s etransmit.
Here are the Tools we’ve built at the office if it can help :
To export a dwg using our plugin juste select what you need to export and type “cadwriter”. Excuse us if the code is not engineered properly, we used a lot of AI in this obviously ^^
If you need testing or any other kind of aec professional feedback regarding this (or another) issue we would be more then happy to help.
