Converting LDRAW models to CAD assemblies

[EdmanZA]

Has anyone had any experience with trying to convert LDRAW models to CAD assemblies?

I've had some limited success with using LDview to export individual parts to STL and then converting them to CAD, but doing whole assemblies gets messy, not least because LDview seems to shrink parts slightly to represent the lines between parts.

I could go the route of converting the parts or creating them in CAD and then rebuilding the whole model in CAD, but I'd rather not go through that duplication of effort if there's a tool or workflow available.

[legolijntje]

Maybe you can use this Blender addon to import the LDraw file and then export again to your desired format?

The importer only supports .ldr (and .dat) at the moment, but I believe .mpd support might come in the future.

[Philo]

Aside from suggestion, this issue

not least because LDview seems to shrink parts slightly to represent the lines between parts.

can easily be solved: in LDView, Edit -> preferences -> geometry tab, uncheck "seam width"

[BEAVeR]

Maybe you can use this Blender addon to import the LDraw file and then export again to your desired format?

The importer only supports .ldr (and .dat) at the moment, but I believe .mpd support might come in the future.

This would also be my suggestion, since Blender has a wide range of export possibilities, especially if you include custom export scripts circulating on the internet as addons, so you have a big chane of finding the right thing.

By the way, the importer perfectly imports parts structured like .mpd files, it's just that you can't select them in the file brower. I'll look into this problem... But simply renaming your file to a .ldr or .dat allows you to import it perfectly.