Convert a DWG or DXF to a 3D Model

We have these files prepared, so we'll go between them, and show you the individual parts. Let's take a look at what we have here. So, we were tasked actually by a designer to take their initial concept for a furniture piece and create a fitting three-dimensional model. So the designer was very comfortable in creating side views and like a front or a side for the shell as well as the legs.

Project files: DXF & 2D Models

Those we needed to translate into a three dimensional model. So for example, if we go to the front, there we can see that actually the legs don't really match what the designer wants. Let's go here and see, that's too high. It's not deep enough, et cetera. The angle is incorrect.

.DXF and .DWG for those who are not necessarily very familiar with it is a CAD format for two-dimensional and three-dimensional work. In the industry, like in furniture, DXF is used a lot. Because we can create construction documents that we give to a company, we create the furniture pieces to cut the lumber, bend the metal, etc.

With DXF or DWG you can also drive a CNC machine. But another nice thing about the DXF import versus simply importing a sketch, is that everything is path based. See, we can select these, we can measure distances, et cetera. When we zoom in all the time, it stays super sharp - you do not have that with a JPG image.

And DXF is a very common format, invented by Autodesk. The model that we have here - this product isn't on the market yet. And if we select something on it, you can see that everything is just a line segment. And this file we can, for example, export. Let's say share, and then we will bring this over to Shapr3D.

As a first step, let's make a new design. There should be 10 inches inside the AutoCAD file. If we select a line in Shapr3D you see it's also 10 inches. So this drawing came in to scale, which is perfect. We do not have to scale anything or worry about it. We can just continue working with it.

And because the DXF is just imported as a sketch, we can now select the transform tool. And select everything. Hit translate. And at this point, we would like to move to the grid. Let's see there, but snap it in roughly. Okay, there. Now I have this one centered. Very good. So open this group there. You see there is one sketch with 323 elements in it.

This is now also the top view. That's all not correct, so select everything. Transform. We will rotate it. We will select a line like this one there. Very good. And then just rotate it by minus 90 degrees. Very good. So from the front, the front view is good. From this side, the side view obviously is not good. So what we will do is we will go in here and then start selecting all these elements. Unfortunately, these drawings are kind of messy. They're very faceted, so our my case, there's a little bit of a cleanup process to do. 

The better the drawings you get, the less of these steps you have to do, but it doesn't take too long. Some double tapping and everything's got very nice there. The socket detail. And then we will adjust the widget so it rotates around this vertical edge. Then we rotate this one and pay attention to the group, which is going to happen just in a second.

You see these two groups were now split up into two parts. That’s actually very convenient because the front view is something we would like to move a little bit further back. Sketch two, the low one. Then we go to transform and just move it back. Very good. Okay, so let's go back to here.

This is essentially then how I oriented the individual views. Then we load it in the shell and remove the leg. And we need to continue creating all these elements we need to create the leg configuration the client was looking for. So, let’s turn all these parts off, and there are my DXFs. Another nice thing, as you’ve seen mentioned before is that because this is a path, I have the luxury to measure everything. 

So we could, for example, select the circle and it helps us with the radius in case this is really correct. So if the designer specifies this, this tube later should be 0.281 inch radius. We can sample it right from it. What's the thickness of the pipes? Based on that, we can select these two lines. Let's maybe select these two lines, both 0.565”. And the person worked a little dirty. And these sketches are done very fast. They're more suggestive to give you an idea, because the material thickness for the pipe will be specified anyway.

So as you can see, we can measure everything quite nicely. And let’s talk a little bit about how we can continue working with that information. The tricky part here was we needed to create two vertical legs now, and then they are also connected. We started first by creating these two cylinders from the front view, and you can see they're perfectly lined up again because we can zoom in indefinitely, we get very precise positions. Unlike with a sketch when you work with a 100 or 50 DPI or 3DPI sketch, at a certain point, you will run out of resolution.

So, we positioned these two cylinders. That was very helpful because of the following: we could use the projector and projected onto the floor profile of these two tubes. And that gives us the ability to draw a line in between and create a construction plane. Now this construction plane, as you can see, is perfectly oriented the way it needed it to be. For those who are not familiar with construction planes and how to create them, let’s go and add a construction plane. We have different types. We would like through edge at an angle, and you can select this line and just rotate that plane as needed

Once this was established and then we could create the side sketch. Let’s go back to the right side. So this is the new cross section. Here we have the leg profile. There was a little tip in creating the circle, right actually on the sketch, perfectly centered. So when we would sweep it, the pipe would really run, centered along this path we created. So let’s see quickly how we could create it - this is a nice trick actually. 

Here's the construction plane. If we select it, and if we double tap, it orients everything. So now we’re this on the sketch plane, and there is the line. Let’s lock this line for the moment, so we can't move it. 

Let’s create a circle. Then we position the circle onto there, and then we just draw a line. And from this line to this line, they have to be perpendicular. 

So let's go to the top. We’re actually away from that original orientation. They see the circle rotated in 3D space, and now we can go to transform. Move and rotate. Select the circle. Then we move the widget onto this line. Let see how it perfectly rotates, and then lines, and then we just rotate actually that circle. This a handy tip to create a circle perpendicular to align and centered. So let’s remove these two. Then we can continue modeling these individual parts. At one point, we also need to create the angle part. So there's, for example, now the angle sketch. I also created another plane, and then created the sketch on it.

Let’s see something. When we go directly onto that sketch, and then we show the DXF sketch from the side. It doesn't really line up, because the sketch is on this plane and we also locked that line earlier. Let’s go then to the right view. We have the key to move these individual parts up and down. 

So you can modify all those parts. We could also move certain elements up and down. Let’s say we draw a line and have an arc coming down and then we can make them tangent. So the sketch, while we see it from the side, is however angled. So when we move that point down, you can see how everything adjusts. And then you only need to slide this one right into the position where it has to be.

Now we can see where that sketch is. So it has the correct orientation and from the side it gives you then also the correct bend. From this point you can follow this process until we have all the individual pipes built. Since everything is symmetrical, we only need to build one half and then mirror everything over. 

So working with the projection of sketches and also positioning these two views inside my scene helps us actually pretty quickly to create the legs exactly the way the client wanted.

Can I convert an image to a 3D model?

You can use photogrammetry to convert images to 3D models. However, this creates complex mesh formats. For more accurate and manufacturable models it’s recommended to create the 3D model from scratch using the methods within this article. 

Can DXF files be 3D printed?

It is not possible to 3D print DXF or DWG files without preliminary work. If it’s a 2D file, you will first need to create a 3D model, and then export it as an STL. If it’s a 3D DXF file, you will first need to use a tool that’s able to convert it to STL.

How do I convert DXF to a 3D model?

To convert a DXF to a 3D model simply follow the steps within this article. In short, position your sketches in line with your plan and then use them to create the 3D model using straightforward modeling operations.