I have some wonderful 2' contours for a section of Atlanta where I'm working on a design project, and I have used these to create a TIN. I would like to export this TIN to Sketchup or Rhino for use with our design, but despite many attempts with different methods, I have failed. Thanks to the benevolence of Georgia taxpayers, I have access to ArcGIS 9.3, ArcGIS 10, Arc/Info, Sketchup 8 Pro, 3ds Max, Rhino, and Autocad.
Here's what I've tried so far:
-Open TIN in ArcScene, export scene to VRML, open VRML in 3ds Max, attempt to export to .3ds or .dae. With .3ds, the export fails. With .dae, the import into sketchup fails.
-Open TIN in ArcScene along with corresponding polygon. Interpolate polygon to multipatch. Export multipatch to Collada. Export fails, with error 999999.
-Convert TIN to elevation GRID. Run "latticedem" on Arc/Info to create .dem file. Import into Sketchup fails.
-Convert TIN to contours. Convert contours to 3d polylines. Export 3d polylines to DWG. Open DWG in Rhino. Attempt to create surface using "loft" command. Rhino runs out of memory once the process hits roughly 1.6gb of physical memory use.
I will admit that my TIN is very detailed. But I have also tried much smaller portion, with very little elevation change, and the first two processes still fail.
Has anyone been able to take a TIN into Sketchup at all since 9.3 came out? I'm at my wit's end.