Part editor trouble with DXF again

[Tim Massa]

Can anyone try and bring this dxf into part editors shape editor and see if it will load for them. Can't get the file to load up for over an hour now. Tried 'washing' the file but no luck with it. Imports into other programs just fine. Was created in Illustrator.

Thanks for any help.
Tim

[Tim Massa]

Allrighty then. Tried bring in the DXF directly from illustrator to E-cabs without running it thru my CAD program. Still no luck. The DXF did import into another carve program and located correctly from where it was drawn in Illustrator.

[Tim Massa]

O.K., I figured it out by accident. Needed to bring DXF from Illustrator into my CAD program and select the drawing and hit 'explode. Doing that and saving it again allowed E-cabs to import the drawing. Weird but worked.

[Tim Massa]

Problem with exploding is that it will segment smooth arcs into short straight lines. Bummer.
Anyone have a suggestion on getting graphics into shape editor as dxf successfully? Other programs are handling AI dxf files fine and have been. First time I've tried it in Ecabs and it appears it wont play well.
Any suggestions?

[jason galbraith]

May or may not be related. But does this thread help?

http://www.thermwood.com/forums/viewtop ... &hilit=dxf

[cris knobloch]

I import a lot of DXF files they come to me via e mail I take them over to bobcad and reorganize them then they open just fine. they appear to be dirty as drawn

[Tim Massa]

Thanks Jason & Cris,

Tried the Draftsight recommended in the thread link and, oddly, it busted up all the arcs into straight line segments by just opening it up. I'm puzzled why this program would do this. Doesn't seem to work for this current DXF issue.
Cris, would you be able to explain how the drawings are 'dirty'? Trying to figure out a method to export out of illustrator in a way that Ecabs will accept them. There were three separate graphics created in Adobe Illustrator that needed to be exploded. Had to redraw the arcs after some of the exploding. Is that what you meant by reorganize? Having to redraw arc elements, etc.?
Thanks for the help. Hopefully there will be a solution to this. It would be nice to have Adobe's products play nicely with Ecabs. Doing so would bring a lot of muscle to the cutting table.
Ill keep screwing around with them. Hopefully there will be a solution.

Tim

[Dennis Englert]

I sent you a PM, that may help. AI is not really a good source for dxf files and as stated by someone else, they come in "dirty" to use their terminology and tend to need a lot of extra work. It's probably only slightly better than converting a scanned image to a usable file.

I don't know AI well enough to give any further advice other than I would use a CAD program rather than AI. You mentioned Draftsight. That's a free program, so there's no reason not to. There are others out there that are very reasonable. Again, no reason not to. When I did play with AI, I found drawing to be cumbersome, but then I don't have any experience with it, so I was probably fumbling. It's been over a year since I've opened that program to experiment.

Dennis

[Brad McIntosh]

 
From our experience with ACAD, Draftsight and other CAD programs -

If you geometry starts of as actual "arcs", then they will DXF out and then into eCabinet Systems or Control Nesting (as a Layered DXF) just fine.

The "linearized" issue arises when your "arcs" as actually POLYLINES! This hods for ACAD polyline entities that are made up of JUST "arc" segments or "arcs" and "lines" that create a spline-like entity.

To avoid the linearization (breaking everything into small line segments), my CAD specialist informs me you can do one of two things:

• 1) Create your geometry in ACAD (or an equivilant, like Draftsigth) using ONLY true ARCs and LINEs and avoid the use of POLYLINES.
       or
  2) Create your geometry as you currently are, but EXPLODE the POLYLINES before creating/saving the DXF version.

How this helps. (If it don't work - blame my CAD guy! )

[Will Williamson]

After 7 years and hundreds of hours struggling with dxf files, calling tech support, begging for help almost every job. A year and a half ago I bought a copy of Aspire and have not had to call tech support one time. Do yourself a favor. I hope I never have to go back to working with layered dxf files

[Tim Massa]

Hi Dennis,

I don't see a PM yet but maybe they take time to come thru?

It's regrettable that Adobe Illustrator and Ecabs won't work well together. I've got a pending contract on some display cabinetry. Display cabinetry usually incorporates some kind of company graphics. In this case we were supplied with the vector art work from the design firm. The design field is using the Adobe suite package and has for a few decades now. Ai is the standard for creating vector based graphics. Redrawing provided artwork in a free cad or cheap cad package is less than optimal but may be the only answer.

The hope was to be able to import and tool path a couple of graphic elements into the display's components. I should add that these vector images are importing and tool pathing just fine in my other CAM packages. No problems.

I've included a JPeg that shows some simple elements that were part edited for a simple seed stand were building. As you can see, there's some simple pocket cuts in the sides of the display. A little seed sprout that is usually between the 'Fruition Seeds' type on their logotype. To simplify and keep costs within budget we removed the seed pod from the graphics and used it elsewhere. All done in AI. The placard will be getting CAM'ed out in another package but the rest of the cabinet will be handles by good ol' e-cabs. The image was composited using Photoshop (another Adobe standard product).

Brad- Just read your post. Thanks, actionable intelligence. So that would explain why the DXF's would only import after the artwork was exploded. Problem I'm having is that 'exploding' the polyline is creating straight line segmented arcs. Redrawing some of the graphic designs in a Cad program is like trying to make molding on a RAS. It can be done. Just not going to be fast or profitable to be sure.

In situations where the graphics world 'bleeds' into the casework work such as this, I was hoping that there might have been method to make that marriage happen more efficiently is all. I'm thinking of a Micro brewery job on my horizon next (graphics heavy) and thought I'd address this situation now. It looks like it may have to be solved with blending CAM packages. Ecabs for the box cutting and others for the graphics.

[Will Williamson]

give me a call 810 310 1111

[Dennis Englert]

I believe that it is more of a problem with Adobe Illustrator not playing well. Since you did not get what I sent, I converted the single page to a pdf and it is attached.

Dennis

[Dennis Englert]

Part Editor Image.PNG (6.47 KiB) Viewed 17422 times

Using the techniques I described in the page that I attached, I had a workable version of the geometry. I've attached to images to show it in the Shape Manager and the Part Editor.

The scale appeared to be way off. I was in Inches and Decimal and it came in very, very small.

Dennis

[Dennis Englert]

I've gone in and looked at the scale on the dxf file. I'm not sure why it is coming in extremely small, like 1/4 scale. Maybe someone else has a clue. I'll continue to look.

Dennis