Export Wireframe model to vector? is it possible

[Anonymous]

hi everyone
im trying to get a wireframe printed out with hi resolution, vector would be the best but i dont know how, can anybody help me please?
thank you very much
kind regards

[Thomas Holm]

Burginger wrote:
Vector images are terrific, resolution independent, clear - crisp, etc. However it has not been my experience to have an automatic vector format from ArchiCAD. When I did want to mess with a vector, I believe the only way was to export a very large bitmap and use Adobe Streamline or similar program - Adobe Illustrator, etc.

Beside the options related by ejrolon, Djordje, Dwight et al, as far as I can remember (at least before AC4.5) you have been able to save the Archicad internal engine wireframe or hidden line 3D view as "2D lines" which gives you an editable 2D flattened vector image in the floor plan view.

[Anonymous]

Does it? An editable eps file, something you can work with in Adobe Illustrator? Wire frame, hidden line and shaded render? I don't remember it working that smoothly. Currently I am doing a move and I can't test.

[Dwight]

You want rendered vectors? I'll give you rendered vectors with Adobe Acrobat. In a 3D model on the page, in a document viewable with Adobe Reader.

Since the Adobe products were mentioned, it bears noting that Adobe Acrobat presents a number of features useful with Archicad u3D exports from the 3D window to Acrobat pages.

The attached shows a rendering of an arbor IN a PDF document that can be rendered in a range of interesting ways and remains a navigable model in Adobe Reader. Lighting changes, section cuts, rendering methods ALL can be controlled by the viewer. So if you want your stuff to look more like SketchUp - this is it - any anyone can see it and navigate it.

Also, at any time, you can terminate the 3D rotational aspect and you might even get your vectors back.

yee ha!

[Thomas Holm]

Burginger wrote:
Does it? An editable eps file, something you can work with in Adobe Illustrator? Wire frame, hidden line and shaded render? I don't remember it working that smoothly..

The Save As 2D Lines option has always worked with wireframe and hidden lines. Not with shaded render, as I recall.

The 2D lines option gives you a new .pln file with just that linework flattened. As with any .pln, you could export it as EPS back then, now you'll have to use the Print as postscript option on the Mac.

As I recall, this feature was at least available from Archicad 4, perhaps even further back. Then it was the only way you could edit a hidden lines perspective, a necessary evil at that time, when you could not copy and paste from the 3D window. I'm surprised you haven't seen it.

Today it's almost obsolete (se Dwight's post) , but perhaps useful in special cases.

[Anonymous]

Dwight, do you know any way of saving to your super-spangly .u3d format from a mac?

I have a feeling it might be windows only

[Thomas Holm]

Activate your 3D window, Save As and select u3d format. It'st here in your standard installation.

Edited:
Correction to the 2DL alternative. If you use the Internal Engine i n the 3D window, it will allow you to save flattened shaded views as well, not only lines. I had forgotten that.

[Anonymous]

Yeah, that's what I tried, and all my adobe software says that it's corrupted.

then I found this: http://www.archicadwiki.com/U3D

which says that in AC-10 it was a windows only feature