Improved DXF-importer for Blender
Migius presents a donation-based DXF importer script.
migius writes:I am proud to present the new improved DXF-importer script.
It supports DXF files of any size and complexity at constant transfer rate.
After months of testing and bugfixing I have finally managed to bring it to stable production level.
The working name of the script is DXF-importer PE (Personal Edition).
I am going to release it under personal license to people supporting me developing CAD tools for Blender.
I hope this will motivate many users to take part on my subscription model and this way to refund development costs.
BTW, the new DXF-exporter is in preparation!
Subscription rates are:
- 30 Euro a year (hobby user)
- 60 Euro a year (semi-profi)
- 120 Euro a year (professional)
Doe’s it support NURBS? Doe’s it preserve surfaces intact through the import?
No, not yet.
The problem is: NURBS-surfaces are not supported by DXF specification directly, but with help of undocumented encrypted ACIS/SAT-objects.
It will change when the ACIS support is completed I have started to develop last year.
Good to know: DXF-importer PE can import various curve-entities into Blender-curves perfectly.
I want to import smoothly objects from Rehino to Blender without loosing the flexibility of NURBS, will it be possible in the future? If yes, can you say approximately when?
It will be possible, but I cant say when, it can take months/years.
I know people using my importer to import curves from Rhino, and it works well.
On the Blender side, support for curves and NURBS(surfaces) is still rudimentary. Because of this I have developed extra curve edit tools in CADtools extension for Blender (2.49b only):
http://www.cad4arch.com/cadtools/
Did I just witness a historical event, the first time ever that someone is charging money for using a Blender addon?
I’ve seen it before, depend on reasonable price or if it could helps you to make money ,or if what you pay to helps developer to improve it.I’m just hobbies at moment but if I’ll be someday in need of link between CAD and blender I will pay gladly for add on.ps.what I’ve heard lots of people still using 2.4 only for CAD tool add.
Sorry, I only support GPL software with donations.
Does it mean, you would donate to GPL version of DXF-importer script?
Yes. I’ve contributed to many, many GPL Blender addons and code, including the ocean simulator, the OpenCL node editor and many more. Most recently I supported the OpenShot video editor (non Blender).
I understand your point. And I wish there were more users with your attitude. And with strong interest in CAD ;)
I have been developing and maintaining GPL version of the importer for a long time (since Blender 2.45?), and got more and more frustrated about minimal user participation. Somehow characteristic for open-source models.
Development of CAD software is very expensive, needs a lot of knowhow and time. CAD is not mainstream, user basis is relatively small. Bad constellation.
My subscription model is a try to do the job and survive.
It’s great to see somebody expanding the ‘technical’ tools for Blender, much like Campbell’s Ruler/Protractor tool mentioned in the recent dev notes. As a visualisation tool, Blender makes ‘pro’ products like $ol!dw0rk$ look very silly – but it’s often awkward to get CAD models cleanly into Blender, so the more CAD-compatible Blender can become, the better.
what is DFX? :P
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AutoCAD_DXF
DFX = abbreviation for Digital Effects, part of VFX.
hi Migius,
Congratulations on this release :)
It must be 5 years now you have worked on cad style tools for bender & dfx.
Thanks for your hard work.
Freelance coders like yourself are always welcome, you provide decent tools for a small fee, nothing wrong with that at all.
coders have to eat. :)
Thanks again & best regards.
You are welcome!
And thank you for encouragement!
By the way, it is exactly 6 years now.
I am eager to see the project completed, so I prepare myself for the next 6 years. ;)
I totally approve funding FOSS by paying a set amount or something like this, but having to pay a subscription to have acess to a plugin seems a little bit too much to me, even if it’s only €10 per month (which right now it’s the amount I donate to Blender Institute each month, since I’m unemployed).
Perfect news! I’ve got encrypter for Autocad ACIS (Bricscad solids are suddenly uncrypted, ZWCAD’s solid structure is hidden), but they are so hard, that I’ve left my script without it…
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?267990-Direct-Autocad-Intellicad-to-Blender-exporter-LISP-to-Download