DXF help please

[jason galbraith]

Hi. I was wondering if someone more knowledgeable than myself can help me out with this customers DXF files. It keeps freezing up the parts editor when i try to import it.

You will need to change the file extension from .txt to .dxf

Thanks a lot.

Jason

[Kerry Fullington]

Jason,

I converted them from metric to imperial and was able to import them to eCabinets. You still have to be patient, there are a lot of lines and arcs.

Kerry

[jason galbraith]

Thanks Kerry, will give it a shot

[jason galbraith]

Hey Kerry, I managed to get the part into part editor and can cut out the holes, but for the life of me, I cannot get the fancy pattern to cut out. Did you get past this? If so how? I've left the computer running for long periods and it does not seem to help. Thanks. Jason

[JohnLashuay]

Hi Jason!

I had the same results. I was able to cut the holes, but when "creating the part using a closed contour" the "next" button would come up, but the closed contour wouldn't turn green and when clicking the next button, nothing would happen.

Not sure what is going on.

-John

[George Davidson]

Hi Jason
See if this is what you want
In the Zip file it has 3 DXF (left,center and right end)
Put one in and cut it (do that to each one) then it will work
The one I made is out of a display cube.
But you can not open it till someone helps me I need to size a steel I-Baem it has to be 40' Ft long it will have to holed two floor on top of it

[George Davidson]

The garage

[Kerry Fullington]

Jason,

The problem is that your .dxf is made from 4290 separate lines. I haven't found a way to reduce that number to simplify the drawing.

[George Davidson]

Kerry now if you put it in to the parts editor can you cut it out with my 3-DXF
In ViaCAD I come up with 587 put then I group them then it is one for me

[jason galbraith]

Anyone from Thermwood able to offer any input on this one?

[Kerry Fullington]

Jason,

I did some research on this and it seems there is some software that will reduce the number of segments (lines) in a drawing like yours but I don't have any of them. It seems that it is much easier to explode a drawing into its individual parts than it is to combine them.
George's method breaks your drawing into three parts which greatly reduces the number of entities eCabinets must deal with abut is not ideal for cutting you part.
I wonder if some of the Cad/Cam software could simplify the drawing.

[Josh Rayburn]

I can do that Kerry, I'll try to take a look this afternoon....I'm swamped at the moment....
jnr

[Scott G Vaal]

Jason,

The dxf's that you posted have polylines and light weight polylines in them. These will get converted into many small lines and creates unnecessary overhead. We recommend that dxf files only contain lines and arc/circles. I have loaded your dxf files into another cad software that we use that converts these polylines into arcs. I have attached them here for you to use (there is a metric and imperial version of the 2 files you posted). I also attached a cabinet that I cut this pattern into if you want it for review.

[jason galbraith]

That seems to have done the trick. Thank you so much everyone who has put their time into looking at this for me. Very much appreciated.

Cheers

Jason

[Kerry Fullington]

I want to address the problem many are having importing .dxf files into eCabinets (discussed in this thread and a related thread on the ShopBot Link forum)
I still feel that the problem lies in the fact that the .dxf files are not created using true lines and arcs but polylines.

eCabinets will interpret true lines and arcs just as you draw them but if your .dxf is created using polylines then eCabinets will interpret arcs as multiple segments of straight lines which can overwhelm the software and cause other problems.

Gary Campbell and I have been discussing this for several days now and have come up with a pretty good solution to the problem.

Download the free cad software Draft Sight located HERE

If you have a drawing created using polylines (eCabinets interprets arcs as segments) then open it in this software, use the select all command to select all entities, and then use the explode command. This will turn the polylines into arcs and lines. Save this as a .dxf. (I use the R12 Version to be safe) It should now work great in eCabinets.

I tried using the explode command on my older version of Intellicad but it would not get the job done. You may try the explode in your cad software but Gary and I have found that the Draft Sight software seems to work quite well.

I was even able to draw a profile in Draft Sight using a spline and explode it (into segments) then open it in eCabinets.

I was able to use this procedure on Jason's fretwork and create a part in eCabinets with no problems.

Hope this helps