Illustrator has many problems (video)

Everything Else
21

All this is true.
Just to note, @Hirudin was going in the other direction (from Fusion360 -> Illustrator), which means the import only understands line segments as well. It is unfortunate, but that is a choice the programmers made.

I would also add that it may not matter so much for laser cutting as long as the line segments are short enough and you don’t intend to manipulate the line much in Illustrator. If you do need to edit it then you can always turn it into a curve again, although it may be labor intensive.

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22

Not too bad actually…figured that bit out here in post #16:

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23

I bet the converted curve would not perfectly match the original though.

24

It’s pretty close.

In order to test it, I copied the segmented paths and set them to one side before converting just that copy to curves. When laid over the original, it was an “exact” match.

(Obviously not absolute exact, but close enough for engineering work.)

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25

So, if the same thing happens in Corel and Inkscape, it seems to me that this is a DXF versioning/translation problem, not an illustrator problem per se.

I saw paid 3rd-party add-ons and plug-ins for Ai that are supposed to solve this issue. Haven’t found a free solution.

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26

It would be interesting to bring that curve back into Fusion 360 (or Rhino), extrude it, and then do a boolean subtraction between the two bodies.

I’d say if it’s not perfect it’s not up to engineering standards, but I’m not an engineer so maybe I’m not qualified to make that call.

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27

It works in Rhino and Silhouette Studio though.

I’d kinda trust Autodesk Fusion 360 to make propper DXFs.

(the release of Rhino that I have, v4, was last updated in 2011, IIRC)

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28

Yeah, Me too. But clearly there is an issue somewhere along the line.

Here is what I think I understand so far:
(correct me if I am wrong)

  • There is vector/shape information, which is being read by all the programs.
  • The bezier info is there, and can be read by some programs.
  • The Fusion DXFs have unexpected properties (the extra lines and the flipped orientation).
  • There have been several iterations of DXF, and they don’t always play nice with each other.
  • Ai has many more options when exporting DXF than when importing it
  • Fusion has no options when exporting DXF
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29

The history of the DXF file format is long (>30 years!), convoluted, and muddy.
There are LOTS of different versions of DXF, they are not interchangeable, and every program (even the various Autodesk programs) supports them differently.

You have to remember that it started as a way to exchange 2D CAD drawings and has grown “organically” over the years. Lots of other stuff has gotten smooshed in there, and the way drawing, CAD, or modeling programs work (i.e. how they describe a drawing) has changed as well.

If it works well enough to make my part and the part fits, then great. If not I have to seek out a different workflow.
(sad shrug)

http://images.autodesk.com/adsk/files/autocad_2012_pdf_dxf-reference_enu.pdf

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30

SVG is like that too :slightly_smiling_face:

31

Yes and so is pretty much EVERY so called standard.
Adobe has actually done a pretty good job with PDF for instance, but even they have fancy stuff that no one else supports.

Generic file formats for complex data are hard!

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32

I’m sure some day, someone will say the same thing about XML… :anguished:

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33

While we are venting about DXF, which in my previous CNC milling and 3d printing projects was how I tended to save drawings, I noticed something about Inkscape. You can import a DXF from Draftsight OK. I use R14 format because that is the Autocad version I learned on. When I wrote some software for a vintage pre Gcode CNC I parsed that DXF ( It’s Ascii) and it is simple enough. A lot of the later versions are indeed compatible.I had in mind importing to Inkscape after drawing stuff that was easier in the cad programs, like 360 second markers for a clock dial or astrolabe. Then importing to Inkscape and doing lettering, which is inferior in a CAD program, then coming out again to add more. What I discovered is that a DXF save from inkscape changes all circles and arcs to splines, which show poorly, and even inaccurately back in the CAD program.
I will wait for the GF to decide what software to settle on.
Does anyone know of inkscape lessons in Portland Vancouver area?

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34

Another thing that might crop up from these segmented curves is bad cut performance. In the past the Glowforge software apparently hasn’t automatically joined lines/curves that share an endpoint. If a spline is split into 180 small line segments we might find our Glowforges taking 180 individual, disconnected cuts.

35

This is what happened when I would import DXF files to run on a vinyl cutter, usually imported into Illustrator or CorelDraw. It really made those servo motors sing LOL, but the worst part was the slow operational speed that resulted.

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36

Oh, they’ve been saying that about XML for a long time.
XML can be used so many different ways that it is usually considered more of a problem than a solution.

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