DWG Importer addon: Gathering Feedbacks

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Hello,

I am trying to make a DWG (A native format used in AutoCAD) importer addon for Blender from scatch. The workflow people dealing with DWG is first to convert DWG to DXF, and then use the built-in DXF importer to import the DXF into Blender, but the results are not that perfect, sometimes it does not work correctly, and at the moment, the built-in DXF importer just supports DXF version R12, which is quite old, and may missing some new features in the newer version of DXF.

So I just decide to make a new addon to directly import DWG into Blender, which will support versions: R13 to R15, R2004, R2007, R2010, R2013, R2018. All based on the Open Design Specification for DWG files.

But before I work on the addon, I just want to gather some feedbacks from the community, some questions I like to get answers.

  1. Do you think a DWG importer addon is necessary?
  2. What features do you want to have in the DWG importer addon
  3. Any other feedbacks are welcome

Notes

The addon will be a commercial addon, because It will take a lot of work into making a DWG importer from scatch without using any other library.

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  1. Well maybe such addon is not necessary per se, but it would be very useful.
  2. It should support fills and curves [all types of data] - e.g. built-in DXF imp/exp does not support all types, and it is not so useful.
  3. It would be advisable to also make exporter. [how much more work is needed?]
  4. If DWG, why not also DXF? Not every program exports DWG.
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Thank you for the feedbacks. They are useful.

  1. Export may double the work, will consider it as the work progresses.
  2. Well, DXF is a good choice, but currently I am only intersted in DWG.
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I think that for any archviz user it’ll be interesting.
My only advice is to find a way to manage all the data of the dwg because often, not all the details of the DWG is needed to build up a 3d model.
For example: the walls are often designed with am hatch that could be composed as little dots or lines to show the wall material. As you import in Blender to create that wall, you need just the four lines that design that wall.
So, I think that something to exclude or manage hatches could help. But this is just an example. Another could be the dimensions. Sometimes could be interesting and useful to have inside Blender but actually, as we already the dimensions inside Blender, importing those could just make the file heavier for nothing.

Due to this, I always open a DWG in AutoCAD, I delete everything I don’t need and then I import in my DCC (at work I use most of the time 3ds but I follow this both when I make personal works with Blender).
Probably the best combo could be a standalone viewer/modifier with just selection&delete features that could save in DWG and a DWG addon for Blender to import it.
This my ideal setup about this argument.

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Thank you for the interesting feedbacks.

Your advice is interesting, as I know, hatch is not supported by the built-in DXF importer in Blender, so I think I should take care of hatches while working on the addon, as you said, this would be an critical & useful feature.

And for dimensions, some options to convert dimesions in DWG ( AutoCAD context ) to Blender dimensions are needed while importing DWG.

Of course, other data not relatived to 3D modeling are also need to consider.

From your feedbacks, I can comfirm that DWG importer addon for Blender should be intersting work.