Please look at this DXF

[jemmyell]

Hi,

Could some PlasmaCAM owners please look at this DXF and comment on the letter 'A'. I have a tester telling me it has 'leftovers'.

-James

[Dustin407]

I am not a plasma cam owner but I looked at the file and was happy to help. I fixed your A with the pedit command in autocad and turned it into a clean polyline. Now for the other letters they are in bad shape also. See if the program will let you sneak by but im pretty sure it wont. They look like they are drawn as a spline and CNC - Splines dont mix...like gasoline and fire... I dont know what a-cad you have so I saved it as a 2004 dxf.... Tell me what it says next, and im sure I can fix it or tell you how.....

Dustin

[jemmyell]

Hi,

I guess I should explain what I am trying to achieve. This is the output from a prototype new feature in the DXFTool for CorelDRAW. I am adding polyline support for some vinyl cutting packages and to improve the ability to support PlasmaCAM. A known issue with PlasmaCAM is requiring the users to 'link segments' when they do a DXF import. Using a polyline without arcs gives a clean import (no link segments) but the shapes are not as smooth as they would be with arcs included. The original DXFTool creates a simplified DXF with only a HEADER and ENTITES sections. The only entities were LINE and ARC entities. Now I am adding POLYLINE entities and I want to support both polylines with and without arcs.

I would be interested in what you mean by a 'clean polyline' or the letters being in 'bad shape'. Looking at a DXF from AutoCAD does not tell me anything. If you could post some screen shots from AutoCAD that might be useful. Currently SheetCAM, Voloview 3 (AutoDESK DXF viewer) and NCPLOT all show this to be a perfect DXF file. The only issue currently open is the 'leftovers' when PlasmaCAM imports this file.

So, this is a DXF file with all ARCs that the DXFTool would normally export represented by polyline 'bulge' (42) parameters. No splines involved.

-James Leonard

[Switcher]

I can't help with plasmacam,

The dxf file looks fine to me, it works in "Vcarve Pro", & "eDrawings Viewer", both with no problems & nothing extra in the file. If the dxf file did have anything extra it would stand out big time in the "eDrawings Viewer".

I tried the latest CorelDRAW a while back, does CorelDRAW allow you to join all the line segments, before you export the dxf?

[jemmyell]

Hi Switcher,

The DXFTool is a CorelDRAW plugin of my own design. The joined segments as a POLYLINE is a new feature for V2 since some CAM software does not seem able to 'chain' LINE and ARC entities even if the endpoints are coincident.

If you have access to CorelDRAW V12, X3 or X4 (the only versions I can support) then send me an email if you like. You can be a beta tester. The license would be free of course.

I will add the eDrawings viewer to my DXF test program suite. Thanks for mentioning that.

-James

[Dustin407]

Hi guys,

I understand you are putting an arc together with small segments of polylines. I guess I am not understanding what your objective is. You said you had a problem with the A and then started talking about something else...?/ Can you please clarify a little..

[jemmyell]

Hi,

The DXF file posted is NOT representing ARCs as a series of small lines. It has polyline ARCs which are represented by a VERTEX with an optional BULGE (42) parameter.

-James

[mike miller]

Originally Posted by jemmyell Hi, Could some PlasmaCAM owners please look at this DXF and comment on the letter 'A'. I have a tester telling me it has 'leftovers'. -James

James, I am a plasmacam owner, and use X4 as well. I just saw your post and tried the dxf import as you asked. It worked fine coming into pcam and produced 3 letters that would cut with no problem. I would be interested in testing your correl add on.

Mike

[jemmyell]

Hi Mike,

Thanks for your interest and doing that test. I have sent you a PM so we can discuss further and I can get a preview copy to you.

-James