Technical Illustrators.org Forum

Hello all,
I'm new to the forum, so see lots of interesting topics being discussed. I have a problem I was hoping for some advice on:

My client has a CAD model of a "new" product that they want to produce an ad for. They want to see the machine in action in the ad as it would be in real life. They haven't built any yet.
Ideally, I would like to use the CAD data, since it is already drawn in 3D. I have used the Illustrator / Photoshop combo with good success in the past to produce realistic airbrush - type illustrations. I know both of these apps well, and use illustrator to create the perspective drawing / lineart / layers, then import to PS to add colors, ghosting etc.

My question is, does anyone know of a way to utilize the CAD file (IGES) to produce lineart in Illustrator?
Ideally, I would like to capture the 'perspective' orientation of the CAD model that fits my grid.
We have been able to "view" the product model in Solidworks as a perspective in the view orientation we liked, then "print" the view to pdf, then open that in illustrator. It produces poor results though.
I have 'demo-ed' several software packages to try this out (C4D, Modo, etc) with no success. I need lineart WITHOUT all the hidden lines. I know it could be possible to do the whole project in one of these packages too, but I don't have time for the learning curve.

Anyone have any ideas? Thnx!

Cinema 4D can do this—but it's not cheap.

You'll need Sketch & Toon in the Advanced Rendering/Prime package. You just add a S&T pass to the render, hit File > Export > Illustrator and it spits out culled/hidden-line artwork.

I'd love to hear if someone has an alternate method.

As far as I know, and it's been a while, the only things that will export clean line art are the high end cad packages and software like Right Hemisphere.
I get a lot of cad data from solidworks, view it with edrawings to get my view (as I don't actually have solidworks) and then redraw. I've seen pretty decent line drawings come out of solidworks but the amount of time you would spend to clean it up you might as well just redraw.

clint wrote:As far as I know, and it's been a while, the only things that will export clean line art are the high end cad packages and software like Right Hemisphere.
I get a lot of cad data from solidworks, view it with edrawings to get my view (as I don't actually have solidworks) and then redraw. I've seen pretty decent line drawings come out of solidworks but the amount of time you would spend to clean it up you might as well just redraw.

I agree that a good CAD program is what is required. I have SolidWorks; for $5K, it better be able to do things well. Attached is a real quick test drawing from SolidWorks 2013 exported to Illustrator format. Compound path released and some colors added to the various paths. I used the variable width tool on the front orange rectangle path. Worked well.

TurboCAD ($1500) does an alright job but it needs to be exported as a PDF, DWG, DXF or SVG, but more work is required in Illustrator than with SolidWorks.

I tried MoI ($200-$300) yesterday. It can ope IGS and export as ai file, but it is only from a model space view (which can't be saved), and opens in Illustrator as a wireframe drawing, which requires a lot of effort to make usable.

Good sample Don, that's the best I've ever seen a cad>lineart export.
And I would probably still spend more time cleaning it up than I would just redrawing it.

Bear with me, this is a little long winded but it should work.

1) Import the IGES file into "FreeCAD" (Free from http://sourceforge.net/projects/free-cad/) and export as STL.

2) Imort STL into "Blender" (Free from http://www.blender.org/) and export as DAE.

3) Import DAE into "Sketchup Pro" (Unfortunately not free but not too bad and very useful in my opinion) and from there you can export 2D graphic in DWG format, which you can drag into illustrator.

Alternatively your CAD data may be available as STL in which case enter at #2. Sketchup can also import 3DS if you can get that.

Hope this was useful.

Thanks to all you guys for some good info!
These suggestions contain some really good options to try out.
Buying Solidworks is not in the cards, but some good food for thought here when working with the client.
...and yes, very helpful!!

Thanks,
Bruce