[Arquitectu]

I´ve seen that you have added the Autodesk Autocad plugin to the plugins list and I am very happy. I would be even more happy if it was the next plugin to be develloped as it is the cad software the most used arround the world maybe. I usually use the 3DS MAX 7 but it would be nice to get directly from autocad to maxwell without the 3DS intermediary. Thank you for this good new!

[macray]

The most used CAD software I don't doubt but I think for 3D there are a lot more programmes capable of FAR more and better ways of working in 3 dimensions. I personally use Cinema to not be forced to use acad...

I work with AutoCAD in 2D daily but i hate working with it in 3D although it got a bit better since acad2000.

[Hugh]

I use Autodesk Inventor & Autocad on a day to day basis.

I bought MW back in March as an Acad plugin was listed then & the price was cheap. As inventor only exports CAD related formats, SAT, STL STEP, etc, I have at the moment only one way to get from inventor to MW, via Acad & Matador (thank you daros). How sweet it would be to go straight from Acad.

Although lots of additional plugins have been added to the list since then. I, for one, hope that the Acad plugin (or the GUI) will be next off the blocks.

[Ernesto]

The proposed workflow (in the maxwell site) from Autocad to Maxwell is not good enough.
A better integration is needed, it could be a pluggin, or anything built in the Maxwell Studio.

A) one aproach to a possible solution could be to add the ability to read DWG files directly from the Maxwell Studio as extewrnal references. In this way you can go back to autocad to update the model, and the next time you open it is studio it will be already updated!

B) another way could be a creation of a pluggin that could be installed on autocad, that could export native DWG with solids blocks and all, to MXS format, in a way that it will not overwrite all the data stored within the maxwell studio, but only the model. In this way, the next time you open the studiuo it will be updated, and none of the work performed within the studio will be lost.

C) The last way could be to ad the ability to read MXS external references in the Studio. In this way it could be possible to overwrite an updated model, to an mxs file, which could be read as external reference from another mxs file, which will have all the materials lights and settings ready to render.

Ernesto

[JTB]

I really don't understand why NL didn't include AutoCAD in their first group of released plugins. There should be an AutoCAD plugin right from the start. There are hunderds of apps for 3D drawing, architectural or mechanical that import/export DWG and more of them that work totally from inside AutoCAD. We are talking about millions of possible customers here. I really don't understand.
I use AutoCAD and Revit, I know that Revit didn't have an API until the last release but AutoCAD? There are 2-3 different programming languages we can use for AutoCAD.

[Hugh]

Autocad WAS one of the first plugins listed, it just never materialized. It was also the reason I got on board the MWR train in the first place.
I think it was around the middle of last year that its presence in the proposed plugin list evaporated. I still don't know why exactly, there's never been any official explanation as far as I'm aware.
I suspect that it probably had something to do with the emergence of Studio and/or resistance from Autodesk, who are rapidly turning into the 3D equivalent of Microsoft.

Anyhow, it's gone, I've mourned, life goes on.

[Ernesto]

Now Autocad 2007 comes with Mental Ray. You can do renders animations as in any other 3d package as 3dmax Maya etc.

Why not to create a Maxwell Pluggin for it?

Ernesto

[Fernando Tella]

With Autocad 2007 the 3D part of the program has become much more confortable, looks like they are trying to get something like sketchup.

[ludi]

The Maxwell to Acad Tutorial isn't justifiable

1.) 3ds is a limited Format (Polycount)
2.) It isn't longe supported from Autodesk.