TurboCAD – Alibre File Transfers.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Specifically, using an imported elevation as a “sketch” base.

 

Having found at last a key area where I kept going wrong in TurboCAD I have started re-drawing the GA, orthographically, for my steam-lorry engine.

This is so I can design each component in place without needing draw it fully – that is for a later detail drawing – so I can “seed” it at the same time as establishing its relationship to the rest.

I need orthographic drawings for workshop use, anyway. However, if I want to model some parts and simpler sub-assemblies in 3D, I would have to use Alibre Atom and a transferable file (.DWG) for a 2D sketch foundation.

In theory. I tried. Alibre just saved my attempts as if pictures, basically.

.

So, if it is possible to open an imported .dwg file for further editing as an Alibre model, how, please?

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

I have posted before with examples of how to get an DXF or DWG file to “open” as a sketch in Alibre In answer to your other queries about it.

Once imported into Alibre as a DXF or DWG file you can open it and select all or part of the 2D drawing then copy and paste that as a sketch to start the 3D modeling.

Can you just confirm that it is opening TC drawings in Alibre that you want rather than the other way round.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

This is the thread where I showed how it is done.

[David JuppParticipant @davidjupp51506]

Nigel,

Key points are as follows.

• Alibre will import the .DWG or .DXF into the 2D drawing workspace.
• You have to select ‘sketch on sheet’ from the right click context menu to get into ‘edit mode’.
• You can then select and copy figures as required.
• copied sketch figures from the 2D drawing workspace can be pasted (or paste stamped) into 2D sketch of a 3D part workspace.

Note also – if the imported drawing contains symbols (AutoCAD Blocks), these must be exploded.

.DWG and .DXF files often are not well formed – it may be necessary to do some remedial tidying to get a valid profile that can be used to drive a 3D feature in Alibre.

[IanTParticipant @iant]

Did you resolve your ‘Snap’ problem Nigel?

If so, what was the solution?

Regards,

 

IanT

P.S.  I needed to re-visit some of my older (from 15 year ago!) TC drawings again last week. I’ve done this a fair bit in the past of course but haven’t needed to do so for a while, as I’ve been using SE for over 5 years now. I simply export the TC native drawings as DXFs and then open them in Solid Edge CE as new (native) SE ‘Draft’ documents. From that point on, I don’t need to go back to TC again.

I’ve not had any issues with working on my old TC files as 2D ‘draft’ drawings, as SE effectively has a ‘2D CAD’ system buried within it that is very capable. I’ve mentioned this before of course but SE does ‘2D’ very well and there’s no need to venture into 3D if you don’t need (or want) to do so. Having said that, I have also migrated some of my earlier TC 2D work into 3D models with SE – although I don’t need 3D for this latest batch (I just wanted to amend the drawings and print them)

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

My advice is don’t!  This Snark is a Boojum.

A 3D-CAD package’s ability to import 2D drawings is fundamentally limited.    2D-CAD drawings have many features, such as layers, that are unlikely to exist in 3D or are applied differently.  It can get very messy.

As 2D and 3D file formats aren’t compatible, importing a 2D drawing requires the 3D package to strip out a lot of 2D jibber-jabber. Often causes difficult migration problems, and is mainly done by advanced users when forced to move a model to a new environment.

Much filtering is done automatically, but it’s likely a skilled operator will have to intervene.  David Jupp mentions the need to explode AutoCAD Blocks.  Blocks are just one of many snags!   To solve it the operator needs to know if TurboCAD uses Blocks, and if so, how to explode them.  And understand the consequences; collateral damage to the 2D original.  Then he has to know what corrections are needed at the 3D end.  Certainly not impossible, but do not expect transferring drawings to be easy!

Nigel hopes TurboCAD and Alibre will co-operate, and they will – up to a point!  Problem is that coupling TurboCAD and Alibre together isn’t simple.  Try it and see!   I predict that, although some basic drawings will transfer cleanly, many others will require remedial action.   Little point in asking for help here when it goes wrong.  I don’t think anyone has all the necessary skills. Diagnosing a migration problem requires TurboCAD and Alibre skills plus a good understanding of DXF & DWG file formats.

My advice: cut losses by standardising on Alibre. Learn how to drive it properly.   Simplify by not hopping between two very different CAD packages.  Changing horses in mid-stream and all that!   Earlier this year excellent progress was made with Alibre and it’s well-supported here.  What went wrong?

Dave

[IanTParticipant @iant]

Generally agree with you Dave

All of my ‘new’ CAD work is now done in SE but I have twenty plus years of TC (2D) work that I find useful to dip in to from time to time (although much less often these days). I’ve not had any real problems in doing so.  Perhaps my work is simpler than Nigels ( I gave up on TC ‘3D’ very early on and avoided it like the plaque thereafter). But I’ve moved a lot of TC work over and it’s saved me time. I’ve never been exactly sure what TC ‘features’ Nigel uses and I stopped upgrading TC in 2016, so can only comment on migrating my TC drawings. Nigels work may use features that mine don’t.

Anyway, we have been around this issue (or ones similar to it) a few times now and I guess it is what it is…

Regards,

 

IanT

 

Got to go do some sorting out in the main workshop now, inspite of the 31 degree heat outside. I’m afraid some 40 years of “come in handy one day” stuff will be going to the Tip next week.  Ketan made me an offer I couldn’t resist and I need to make more room…  🙂

 

[David JuppParticipant @davidjupp51506]

Dave,

You over-dramatize, there is no requirement to know anything about the source CAD app.  You don’t need to know much if anything about DXF/DWG either.

Alibre has an Explode function within its 2D drawing workspace to deal with symbols/blocks.  It also has a sketch analysis tool that will find issues such as overlaps, intersections, etc.

The other thread includes a link to a video that covers most of the pitfalls and traps, and how to deal with them.

It’s condescending in the extreme to suggest that nobody has the necessary skills.

Whilst it can often be as fast or faster to re-model from scratch, starting from an imported DXF or DWG is not particularly difficult, it’s a relatively straightforward process once you are used to the workflow.

 

 

 

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Agree with David, I have no Idea what that drawing I used in my example originated from but had no problem. As the saying goes “just do it”

Nigel, if you want to send me one of your DXF or DWG files created in TC I’ll do another example with pictures as I know you don’t like video.

[IanTParticipant @iant]

Yes, sorry. I don’t worry about what is going on in the ‘background’ – I’m simply exporting a DXF file from TC and then directly opening it in SE Draft. It’s very straight forward. I was agreeing with Dave in terms of committing to a single CAD system and sticking with it where ever possible

With regards to starting drawing from scratch or using existing work, sometimes that is easier to start over for 3D work but for some other things it most certainly isn’t..

Here is a simple TC 2D (DXF) file that I’ve just opened in SE Draft.  Everything is there (layers/dimensions etc) and I can use exactly the same sketching tools in SE 2D that I normally use in SE 3D modelling. I can then save this as a native SE ‘Draft’ doument either exactly ‘as is’ or amended as required. I then have no need to return to TC for this drawing ever again. As I have quite a lot of this kind of work, re-creating everything from scratch again would take a long time (even if I still had the source references to hand).

Regards,

 

IanT

(It’s really quite warm out there atm….)

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Second attempt to reply. I accidentally hit two keys at once and it turned the whole page into some sort of image file, .pdf I think., closing the Forum and forcing me to re-open it, this time demanding I recognise American stairs.

………

Thank you Gents.

First things first:

Please remember I have no original drawings for this project, just low-grade copies of trade advertising material from 1908, so I need design the whole thing to match. I am not translating a long-published model-engineering plan-set, nor original manufacturers’ drawings, to CAD.

Already I have made fundamental changes, from compound to simple-expansion, and modifying the connecting-rod length twice.

So I need a drawing system that lets me think both machine and machine-part together. I cannot design a machine from isolated, individual parts; and cannot design the parts without at least a partial layout.

.

Ian –

Snaps: yes, thankyou, with help from Paul Tracey who also sent me a set of introductory videos far clearer and more useful than even IMSI’s contractors manage.

It seems many have been caught out by trying to use TurboCAD in the directly-intuitive way, by the tool-bar menus. It responds better to what it calls its SEKE moves (Single-Entry Keyboard Equivalents) I had previously not used.

.

I am perfectly well aware this transfer business will ONLY work for a single-layer 2D image, either an orthographic elevation for use in a 3D model, or a 3D model facet to use in an orthographic drawing. Certainly not for assemblies, in either direction. I did not expect otherwise. I cannot model a complex machine in 3D in either TurboCAD or Alibre anyway, although it is possible in both.

As far as I know, TurboCAD has no equivalent of Alibre’s system for creating 3D Assembly images from Part ones. You need create each Part in place; but its 2D mode is very flexible for designing the whole thing.  Alibre is fine for copying old drawings as a CAD exercise, but that assumes you have both the plans and expertise. I don’t.

.

The drawing below shows what I am trying to achieve and why this method. It might not reproduce very well, being a screen-shot then converted from .png to .jpg form. The individual parts do not need much detailing on the General Arrangement; not all parts need be shown (e.g. connecting-rod one side, valve-gear the other). Nor does very part have to be drawn completely first: it is completed and located according to how the whole drawing develops.

I cannot create a 3D model of the whole machine in either package. So want to choose the better or easier at any stage for designing both the machine and its bits together. As this drawing progresses, I will be able to put the various parts in their right places.

 

I have found it far easier to export an Alibre sketch as a DWG file to TurboCAD; than vice-versa. TC opened it directly, and I did that for the expansion link in this drawing. Once I’d trimmed some extraneous stuff to make its image symmetrical, it was fairly easy to place it correctly above the crankshaft (right-hand end). The link-work on the left is more for geometrical construction purposes.

[David Jupp]

On David Jupp Said:

Dave,

You over-dramatize, there is no requirement to know anything about the source CAD app.  You don’t need to know much if anything about DXF/DWG either.

OK perhaps I’m a pessimist!  🙂 But did you notice my post  addresses Nigel’s original question?

Having found at last a key area where I kept going wrong in TurboCAD I have started re-drawing the GA, orthographically, for my steam-lorry engine.

This is so I can design each component in place without needing draw it fully – that is for a later detail drawing – so I can “seed” it at the same time as establishing its relationship to the rest.

I need orthographic drawings for workshop use, anyway. However, if I want to model some parts and simpler sub-assemblies in 3D, I would have to use Alibre Atom and a transferable file (.DWG) for a 2D sketch foundation.

In theory. I tried. Alibre just saved my attempts as if pictures, basically.

In Nigel’s context DXF migrations are a gamble, and it’s unwise to assume they will just work. And, when technical stuff goes wrong, it pays to know how it works.   I question Nigel’s requirement to get into DXF at all.

Alibre has an Explode function within its 2D drawing workspace to deal with symbols/blocks.  It also has a sketch analysis tool that will find issues such as overlaps, intersections, etc.

The other thread includes a link to a video that covers most of the pitfalls and traps, and how to deal with them.

Good, but the user has to know those tools exist and understand them.  Maybe Nigel is better off avoiding the need!

It’s condescending in the extreme to suggest that nobody has the necessary skills.

Name one!  Who on the forum understands both TurboCAD and Alibre well enough to explain how to fix compatibility problems?  Judging by posts, the forum is thin on TurboCAD.

Whilst it can often be as fast or faster to re-model from scratch, starting from an imported DXF or DWG is not particularly difficult, it’s a relatively straightforward process once you are used to the workflow.

 

Only ‘once you are used to the workflow‘ and provided it doesn’t go wrong!

Remember we should be addressing Nigel’s original question.  I suggest his question results from not accepting 2D-drawings are generated by 3D-CAD after modelling, and they aren’t a pre-requisite.  Instead, Nigel wants use traditional 2D methods, which is fine, and well supported by TurboCAD.   Unfortunately he wants to combine TC and Alibre in a way that creates new problems and is another learning challenge.  I repeat, don’t do it, for the reasons explained in my post.

Ignoring anything I said, would David please confirm he endorses Nigel’s opening proposal to use TurboCAD and Alibre in combination?  Yes it can be done, but is it a good idea?  What are the pros and cons of mixing TC and Alibre in the same workflow?

Dave

[David JuppParticipant @davidjupp51506]

Dave – I don’t have endorse any particular approach.  It’s not for me to tell people what tools to use – I can help if they choose to use Alibre in any part of their workflow, as I know a fair amount about that.

As there is no need to know anything about TurboCAD, or about DXF formats to USE a DXF exported from TurboCAD in Alibre, I for one have the ‘necessary skills’, as clearly does Jason, and I suspect quite a few others too.

[IanTParticipant @iant]

Well I’m pleased to hear that you’ve finally discovered key-board shortcuts (SEKEs) Nigel. I watched a Paul-the-CADs YouTube many years ago that recommended removing the screen drop-downs and learning to use the keyboard instead. Having originally self-taught myself TC, I had to really start over and ‘unlearn’ my bad habits but it was well worth the effort. I suspect the use of SEKEs didn’t solve your ‘snap’ problem though but fortunately, the problem has gone away.

Looking at your drawing, I can see how you use construction lines to help visualise relationships between parts and perspectives and if this approach works for you then I guess that’s OK.

If I understand correctly, you’ve decided to move work between (to and fro) the two CAD systems. This is very far from ideal and I beleive it will cause you continued inconvenience. I can’t speak to Alibre (as I’ve never used it) but there is nothing I normally do with TC 2D that I cannot also do with SE 2D. Once a TC drawing has been ‘migrated’, I have no further need to return to TC. However, you’ve chosen a different CAD route to me and I don’t know if the same approach is true for Alibre.  If you possibly can, I’d make the effort to stay in one or the other. I can’t remember exactly why you needed something more than TC now but I assume if was compelling enough to make you try other CADs.

If you are going to make the effort to learn TC SEKEs (which may you find difficult at first) then perhaps you should instead use that time to leave TC behind and fully adopt Alibre?

Regards,

 

IanT

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Name one!  Who on the forum understands both TurboCAD and Alibre well enough to explain how to fix compatibility problems?  Judging by posts, the forum is thin on TurboCAD.

AS a DXF or DWG is a generic file type it will not matter where it originates as has been said.

As David Jupp is on the Alibre payrol I suspect he has rather good knowledge of the program and can always consult with the developers and back room boffins if needed.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

I know TurboCAD and Alibre are not directly compatible. I never thought they were nor implied that I thought so. One does not expect any CAD maker to write file-types fully readable by its rivals’ software!

I know I can only copy a flat surface image between them by .dwg format; and that it will remove most of the source software’s editing codes; analogously to transferring a document in .txt format. I did not ask if I can do that, but how to do it.

 

Although my first thought was TurboCAD to Alibre I since discovered Alibre to TurboCAD is a lot simpler and possibly the more useful direction. I can thus trace the outlines of parts I have already modelled in Alibre Atom, to the General Arrangement drawing in TurboCAD.

If I could use either package fully, I might need use only one, but I still cannot design a machine by designing each part individually, first. I have to perform both sides of the designing – parts and assembly – contemporaneaously.

I am copying not drawings, but old advertisements! I am not modernising LBSC-era plans in umpteen-sixty-fourths of inches and a hundred parts per sheet. Not adapting original manufacturer’s drawings (non-existent). Not measuring a preserved, full-size original (non-existent). I have to work almost entirely from scratch.

Hence needing TurboCAD to lay out the main components, including some already made, and to work out the next steps.

Alibre Atom does not offer that facility. It is fine if you are adapting existing material, but not designing it.

…..

The Forum is thin on TurboCAD because Paul Tracey has partially retired from selling it, stopped advertising it in the magazines, and Alibre stepped in with its ‘Atom’, introductory series in MEW and free short-term initial licence. TurboCAD is still alive and well. Its manufacturer, IMSI has recently released a new edition of it.

You don’t see much here about Fusion 360 or Solid Edge, either. Nor are they advertised in our Press. A quick look suggests they are slightly similar to Alibre, at least superficially.

…..

The TurboCAD User’s Forum is full of its experts as you’d expect, and some show impressive lists of both TurboCAD editions and rival makes in their post signature-blocks. So I don’t think me having just TurboCAD Deluxe 2019 and 2021, and Alibre Atom, is being particularly over-ambitious!

 

 

[Nigel Graham 2]

On Nigel Graham 2 Said:

. I have to work almost entirely from scratch.

Hence needing TurboCAD to lay out the main components, including some already made, and to work out the next steps.

 

Alibre Atom does not offer that facility. It is fine if you are adapting existing material, but not designing it.

 

Sorry Nigel I will have to disagree with you there. I design many engines from scratch be that an old photo, engraving, new photo of an old engine, etc. I can lay out “basic components” to check that they move correctly in relation to other parts in the assembly and then when I am happy with the basic function flesh them out to finished parts.

Here is an old Patent engraving imported into Alibre so that sizes can be taken from it

 

Here is a basic mock up of the motion with simple “lollystick” linkages all of which can be anomated to check that they function correctly.

Then the parts fully modeled, again all can be animated

Then built

So I would certainly say that Alibre is more than capable of being used to design engines from old documents. Want another example then look at the Banjo engine posted a couple of days ago. From a photo of pile of parts laid out on a rag to a working engine.

 

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Fine project, Jason!

However, you show the two big differences between our projects.

Firstly, I am designing my engine from scratch. NOT from a manufacturer’s drawing as you show there. Nor from measuring physical parts of most of the engine, as with that Banjo machine.

The original drawings for my wagon are long lost, perhaps destroyed when Hindleys ceased trading more than 100 years ago.

A few old publicity photographs show some of the exterior of the enclosed engine and its size can be estimated, very approximately. Other archive material gives the cylinder sizes. That is all the specific information there is!

Otherwise I am drawing the few parts I have already made but may need to modify or even replace; copying the valve-gear from K.N. Harris’ drawings for his version of LBSC’s Maid Of Kent 5″ g. locomotive, and using guidance from reference-books.

So I have to design the engine completely, to fit a box fairly replicating the photographed original.

 

Same with the gears between the engine and chain final-drive. I have no idea what it all looks like because it is hidden below the footplate; only that it is two speeds and my replica’s chain line is set by the axle already built. Goodness knows where the feed-pump and parts of the brake rigging are among it all, too.

 

I can not design any of this by modelling the parts first. Only by designing the parts in their places as the general-arrangement develops; a mutual operation I cannot see possible in Alibre even if I was any good at using it.

I am afraid you have reinforced the point I made. CAD is a drawing tool but needs considerable skill to use effectively, and its user is the one who designs the thing!

…

Secondly, your example shows you are clearly far more skilled with 3D CAD than I could be. I could not model most of your engine’s parts, let alone create that complicated 3D assembly. I can use the software only to my natural learning limit for it, which is not very high and I have likely reached it.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Nigel here are a few more examples, this time just a photo was all I had. I used the Denny as I still had the “lollypop” parts to use as an example of how it can be done.

Ideal Engine image that I worked from

Castings I designed the patterns for

Complete Engine

Current project image that I am working from and my 3D CAD next to it

Photo from Preston’s web site

CAD from which ot was made

Filer & Stowell

I won’t fill up the forum with more but all are just taken from an external image. No GA to give me a basic layout and take basic sizes from, not all details shown so have to best guess just like your, etc. Which is really no different to the small amount of reference material that you have.

I have not included the “Freelance” engines where I don’t even have a physical image, just one in my head.

Your last three paragraphs sum it up. Alibre is more than capable of doing what you want. You on the otherhand have not grasped it ( or TurboCAD) sufficiently to make good use of it. Statements that “Alibre can’t do it” are very misleading to others following your threads and may put them off Alibre and CAD as a whole.

 

[DiogenesParticipant @diogenes]

Nigel, yes, I use Alibre for scratch designing too

I have to say the reason I invested a reasonable sum of money in buying it, is because of the limitations of exactly what (I perceive) you appear to be trying to do now – i.e attempting to figure out complex assemblies that exist in a three dimensional reality, in a two-dimensional workspace..

I’ll write more later, I really need to get out the door.

[NealebParticipant @nealeb]

Nigel – one reason perhaps that you do not see F360 or SolidEdge mentioned much here is that any mention of them is somewhat irrelevant in a TC/Alibre discussion! I am a former TC user but thankfully have never needed it since I found 3D CAD. First via Onshape in its early days, then F360 and now SE. I still use both the latter two with more complex design and assemblies in SE and simpler design (often for 3D printing) in F360. I also export 3D models from SE to F360 to use its CAM functions to generate CNC toolpaths. I have also imported DXF files into F360 that came from someone else’s drawings using I-don’t-know-what software. Have to admit that I have not created a complex design from scratch; my current loco project is taking a Don Young design into SE to see how parts of it go together (difficult to see from traditional drawings), generate CNC toolpaths for many components – and pick up the odd design error which would not have happened if DY had had access to 3D CAD!

I suspect that there are many other F360/SE users here but perhaps because of the Alibre articles in the magazine (and Jason’s impressive work) that one is more often seen on this forum, with the benefit of knowledgeable support from David J. I expect to be at the Midlands ME show in October demonstrating 3D CAD on the SMEE stand – but using F360 (or just maybe SE by special request…). One point that I shall be making is the need to forget much of what you know as a 2D draughtsman in order to use 3D CAD.

[IanTParticipant @iant]

I shall be at the MME on the Saturday and will make a request to see Solid Edge!

I use Se for everything now – except as you say for CAM, where I am very much a beginner but trying to learn F360 CAM. I agree about the “2D” mindset but the other problem I’ve found with switching between different CAD system is what I think is as ‘muscle memory’. When I go back to TC now, my fingers/mouse still wants to do SE things unless I pay very close attention, which can be irritating…

Regards,

 

IanT

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Yes another user of F360 here, you will see me mention it in many of my posts about CNC as I use it for the CAM. I can also create and alter parts in it if needed but mostly do that wih Alibre.

Did download FreeCAD a few weeks ago as someone here had it and some queries, soon picked it up and was able to answer their questions.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Without spoiling a forthcoming article in ME&W titled “concept to completion” this is a good example of working from scratch. Photo one is the fag packet sketch of the original concept. Others show the engine design in Alibre, Modified files to form the 3D model for the patterns, F360 tool path simulation, CNC cutting the patterns using G-code produced by F360 and the actual patterns then  castings ( not cast by me). The castings were subsequently machined by CNC as well again using F360 generated tool paths.

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

My son was a 3D CAD wizard until he strayed from the path of righteousness and moved into doing software for financial services. I’m not allowed to call him a banker. He would not have dreamed of designing anything in 2D then trying to import it to 3D, but he reckoned that having a working knowledge of 2D CAD was a major impediment to learning 3D

Nigel seems to be determined to straddle the divide,  then blame the software if he can’t cope. Just decide on one of the other. The Merlin was designed in 2D, so its not all bad, but it would have been easier in 3D

[Author]

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