I am frequently converting between dwg and dgn. I am curious what folks believe is the best way to go about converting dwg to dgn? I have been opening the dwg in openroads and exporting to dgn. I have also been opening a seed file or another related dgn and referencing the dwg, then merging to master. Are there any examples where it would be better to export a dgn in Civil3D? From what I've heard, that isnt the best option but I am curious if its ever the preferred method, in certain circumstances. I am operating OpenRoads 2020 release 3 (10.9) and Civil3D 2020 Imperial.
Much Appreciated!
Neil
I wish I could do that method you describe, but I keep getting "an existing MS session has been detected. Please close the MS session and try again". I have no MS or anything else open. Tried rebooting and still getting error. Others I work with are getting the same error.
I sent my dwg to Bentley, to see if they can somehow export/save it with the vegetation and trees. I have most things converted now, except those.
Hi Neil,
Probably not what you are asking, but you can use LandXML for Alignments and Surfaces/Terrains and have a dynamic link between them to keep interoperability as least labor intensive as possible.
If you export your Alignments and Surfaces from c3d and import these into ORD, the ORD model will be linked to the LandXMLs and any future export from c3d to the same LandXML files can be updated in ORD by clicking the "Update Terrain from Source" button for Terrains or reimporting the Geometry. It wont recreate the elements, but resync them (and maintain any links or relationships in your model, but update them accordingly).
Regarding DGN support in AutoCAD/Civil 3D, we've found this to be quite poor, so i'd suggest convertions in the OpenRoads/Microstatiopn environment.
Regards,
Mark
OpenRoads Designer 2023 | Microstation 2023.1 | ProjectWise 2023
Thanks, Mark. I just figured out this morning, from the help of Bentley support, that if I open my dwg in Civil3d and then give command 'AeccExportCivilDrawing' and hit enter, a dialog box will popup and ask me to save as a plain dwg. This saves all of the autocad enabled objects as exploded - which is what I did and then I was able to open the dwg in ORD and view everything and save to dgn or merge to master. However, The best way to be able to view the objects in ORD and save the dwg to a dgn is through downloading an autocad object enabler software install. This allows you to view the objects in ord, so you can then save them as a dgn.
Mary, I actually misread your sentence at first and thought you were saving it to a .dgn. Doing what you describe has gotten me where I need to be. I actually got some info from Bentley support - they told me to install an autocad object enabler. This will allow me to view the objects in ORD that the dwg has saved in it. Another way is to open dwg in autocad, command AeccExportCivilDrawing (which is what I think you're describing) and then export. There are ways to change the settings with this too, if you want different Autocad versions, etc.
Anyways, I got it figured out and I'm good to go... for now, until something else comes up!
Thanks!