topic Re: Importing DXFs from Illustrator into Fusion always fails to close some paths in Fusion Design, Validate & Document Forum

Importing DXFs from Illustrator into Fusion always fails to close some paths.

Anonymous — Fri, 23 Oct 2015 10:43:15 GMT

I am trying to export a DWG from Illustrator and extrude it into 3D geometry in Fusion. However, whenever I try to do this, most of the features don't get recognized by Fusion as closed extrudable paths. I have encountered this problem a number of times in the past and would love to find a solution, since it's a common workflow for me to do rudimentary design work in Illustrator and then need to work with it in Fusion.

AutoCad 360 (the web-based 2D AutoCAD) reads the files just fine.

And I can import the files more or less into Fusion by uploading them to the cloud and opening them directly.

However all the curves other than simple circles don't show up at closed paths eligible for extrusion, which is what I need. Nor can I edit those paths in any meaningful way.

Here is a link to the uploaded file in Fusion 360

http://a360.co/1W8ST7Y

Copying and pasting anything at all from this DWG being edited in Fusion into a sketch in another document also doesn't seem to work at all.

So how do I get data form Illustrator into Fusion in a way that allows me to work with it directly as if I had sketched it natively in Fusion?

Re: Importing DXFs from Illustrator into Fusion always fails to close some paths

HughesTooling — Fri, 23 Oct 2015 10:54:56 GMT

Does Illustrator have any options for the type of splines it exports. It looks like most of the design in coming in as splines and Fusion doesn't like some types of spline. Does Illustrator have an option to export as older versions of DWG I think 2000 and Release 12 DWG files work better.

Mark.

Edit. Bit of confusion over whether you want DXF or DWG, either way what I said above applies.

Re: Importing DXFs from Illustrator into Fusion always fails to close some paths

michallach81 — Fri, 23 Oct 2015 13:19:10 GMT

Try to export as svg, and use Insert SVG tool. Be aware that svg don't come in any specific unit, so it might came in awkward scale. When I do export from Inkscape, I draw everything in proper scale and unit, at first, then I change unit to pixels and I scale whole drawing, for example I have box in a size 50x50mm and I like to have it same size in Fusion.

After changing unit to pixels it apears as 591x591px, so I scale it to size 50x50px. That file will came as 50x50 of any unit that is defult for your Fusion document, at least from Inkscape. It should works for Illustrator, and yes it will came with all curves.

Re: Importing DXFs from Illustrator into Fusion always fails to close some paths

HughesTooling — Fri, 23 Oct 2015 13:29:09 GMT

If you go down the SVG route have a look at post #3 in this thread for help with scaling.

Mark

Re: Importing DXFs from Illustrator into Fusion always fails to close some paths

Anonymous — Sat, 24 Oct 2015 06:48:25 GMT

Thanks for the suggestion, Mark! Unfortunately both with DWG and DXF, using either version 2000 or R13 (the earliest version that Illustrator CC currently supports) has no improved effect. There is a limited set of options when exporting DXF and DWG files, but they are mostly relating to how text is translated and don't seem to address splines. I suspect that the problem in all this lies in Illustrator having imperfect support for the DXF/DWG standards.

The search continues. 🙂 I'll try some of the other suggestions in this thread next.

Re: Importing DXFs from Illustrator into Fusion always fails to close some paths

Anonymous — Sat, 24 Oct 2015 12:51:53 GMT

Thank you. I had been avoiding the SVG solution because of the scaling issues I had encountered in the past but having this magic number helped me sidstep them. I really appreciate it! This is going to make my life a lot easier.

Re: Importing DXFs from Illustrator into Fusion always fails to close some paths

HughesTooling — Sat, 24 Oct 2015 13:05:28 GMT

Glad the SVG import worked for you. There are some advantages using DXF files like layers are made into sketches with the same name as the layer. I think there's some development going on to improve DXF import, see this thread

Mark