Export / Import file?

Hi everyone, my name is Graham and I'm a newbie:).

I recently been playing around with autocad2007 which has been fun. My architect friend emailed me over a drawing showing front and side elevations and ground/first and second floor. In autocad 2007 they look fine. He wanted me to knock up a quick 3d render in 3ds max but when i import the file into max i find i am having to zoom in very close and my units (metric) don't look like they should??

Maybe i should be on a 3d max site:cry:.

Could it be the email size??

Any ideas / solutions would be great.

Merry xmas everyone:D

I have moved your question to our 3ds Max section.

First, make sure your friend created this drawing at 1:1 and not some small scale.

If the drawing is 1:1, then move everything to X0,Y0. Max doesn't like it when things get too far away from the origin.

Thanks Cad64..

I have tried to make X0 and Y0 in the boxes at the bootom of the screen in Max but it would not let me, so i right clicked on the move icon to enter the 0 amount there but still nothing?

Does this mean the drawing was made small scale?

I would move the drawing to X0,Y0 in Autocad and then Import it into Max. Also, check the measurements of the drawing in Autocad as well. It's easier to do these things in Cad than it is in Max. Not that it can't be done in Max, it's just easier and faster to do it in Cad.

Thanks Cad64.

How would i go about moving the drawing to X0,Y0 in Autocad & checking the measurements??

Sorry i really am new to this

Have you ever used Autocad before?

It might be best for you to just ask your friend if he created this drawing at 1:1. If he didn't, then have him scale it up to full size and move the drawing to X0,Y0 for you.

If you want to find out how to do these things yourself, check your Autocad help files for information on the MOVE, SCALE and ROTATE commands. These are the very basic commands that are used constantly. And for checking the measurements, you will need to learn about OSNAP, ORTHO and the DIST command. Then, of course, you will need to know what the actual measurements are supposed to be in order to figure out if the drawing was drawn at full size or not.

If you're serious about learning Autocad, you will need to get yourself a book. There's no way you will be able to learn this program without one. The books by George Omura are very good and you can find them on Amazon.com.