Opening Ordnance Survey Landform PANORAMA map files into Solidworks

[NitroXi]

Has anyone ever tried and had any success in opening any of the Ordanance Survey's Landform Panorama map data into solidworks?

The download is huge so I have attached an example map from the file.

Ideally I would like a part in Solidworks representing the topographic map data in the file.

It's something I keep revisiting and failing miserably with! The downloaded data is in dxf format which sort of opens but I can't convert it to a part or surface. I have tried various other pieces of software like SketchUp which opens it but then also fails. Any suggestions?

Or if anyone can recommend a way of getting topographic maps converted to parts I can use in Solidworks? (I have managed to rip the data from Google earth which I can get a 3d surface in to Google SketchUp but can't convert it to solid works).

Thanks for any advice

 

[ctopher]

I personaly have not heard of it. I don't think you will have much luck importing a topographic map to a part. It may need to be edited and created using the imported sketches.
Import the DXF into a drawing and copy thegeometry into a new part sketch.

Chris
SolidWorks 11
ctopher's home
SolidWorks Legion

 

[JMirisola]

That drawing is huge, something like 1600 feet across. It's also 2D, which doesn't lend itself very well to actually creating anything but a flat surface.
From what I can tell, to use that file, you'd need to create an inordinate amount of 3D sketches to get your representative heights and then build surfaces from them. Given the size, I'd say you need one hell of a computer and weeks of time to do it.

Jeff Mirisola
My Blog

 

[ctopher]

For this kind of data, Autodesk has products that will create 3D files from this.

Chris
SolidWorks 11
ctopher's home
SolidWorks Legion

 

[Guest0527211403]

Sketchup (formerly by Google but now owned by Trimble) also has some terrain modeling tools (look up "Sandbox") that let you import topo map data from a DXF.

To get it out to Solidworks, you can use a ruby plugin (Su2STL) to generate an STL file from the terrain surfaces, which can be imported into SW.

 

[NitroXi]

Thanks for your replies. I's so infuriatingly close!
Solidworks will import the map as a drawing fairly well (only the 3rd layer is needed) for the contours. But then the height information is lost and the sketch doesn't behave very well. Annoyingly importing the 3rd layer as a 3d part only partly works and doesn't import all the contours. I can't do anything with it anyway. Though I guess I'm probably missing one of the more obscure Solidworks commands. I think it falls down with the scale too as I believe SW can't deal with parts over 500m

I have been having a little more joy importing from Google SketchUp, thanks to the su2stl plugin (thanks for that!)
After using SketchUp to get a topography I can then Export it as an STL.
I can then import it to SolidWorks as an 'STL Graphic' or as a 'mesh' but I again I can't do anything use full with these (create a surface or a part). Probably missing something SW can do as this is all uncharted territory for me. I have attached a part file of the STL import from SketchUp in the two ways I can import, STL graphic and mesh if anyone fancies a look!

 

[NitroXi]

And the STL graphic file.

Incidently I have also tried making a contour map with SketchUp following this tutorial but I can't get much joy with that either.

Thanks again for any suggestions!