scatter command and orientation

[dvmorris]

is there a way to take a group of blocks in autocad, that represent street lights, import them into viz, and replace them with a 3d model of a light, and preserve the orientation?

 

i tried the method of converting the block to a single triangle, exploding it, importing to viz, using scatter on all face centers, but the orientations of the lights seems completely arbitrary.

 

if there were a way to place them this way, and then manually adjust the orientation for each light, that would be okay. i have no idea, though.

 

thanks for your help,

dave

[Brian Smith]

Yes there is a way to do exactly what you want.

 

Without exploding the blocks first in AutoCAD, import the blocks (whatever their appearance), highlight all of them in Max, apply the Substitute modifier and pick the 3D object that you want to substitute the block with. That's it. But you have to make sure that you rotate the block in AutoCAD AFTER you've made it a block. The block has to have a rotation value locked in before you import it.

[dvmorris]

that sounds like exactly what i need. thank you so much for the help.

[dvmorris]

I´m trying out your instructions, but when i import the blocks, the lines drawn in the block in cad don´t seem to be associated with the block objects it imports... basically each light has some 30 lines, and they are all individually selectable. when i select only the blocks, and try to apply the substitute modifier, it doesn´t come up in the list of available modifiers.

 

is it a problem with the layer structure in my cad file?

or do i have to use the file link manager instead of file->import?