topic Re: DXF Export Spline curves in Fusion Support Forum

DXF Export Spline curves

sebmorales — Thu, 19 Mar 2020 19:38:38 GMT

I have been looking for days and haven't been able to find a solution, a lot of posts around the same topic but none the same.

It seems that whenever I export a dxf of a drawing with splines, the exported dxf is converted to segments of lines. After importing to another software (Illustrator) and laser cutting, I can feel the lines where there should be a curve. Is there a way to export as splines, or as arc segments instead?

Re: DXF Export Spline curves

jeff_strater — Thu, 19 Mar 2020 22:44:50 GMT

What are you importing this DXF into? Most likely, the issue is on the import side, not the export side. I tried re-importing that DXF into Fusion, and into viewer.autodesk.com, and both work fine.

So, I think the DXF is accurate. Plus, DXF is a text format, you can open it and see the spline entities:

Re: DXF Export Spline curves

sebmorales — Fri, 20 Mar 2020 12:28:17 GMT

I'm working with adobe illustrator. The strange thing is that if I create a spline in illustrator and export it as a dfx, when I bring it back it works fine.

Thanks for taking a look 🙂

Re: DXF Export Spline curves

jeff_strater — Fri, 20 Mar 2020 16:51:18 GMT

Thanks, @sebmorales - this probably means that AI does not support this DXF entity as a native curve type. Sorry that the result is good.

Re: DXF Export Spline curves

HughesTooling — Fri, 20 Mar 2020 17:23:24 GMT

@sebmorales wrote:

I'm working with adobe illustrator. The strange thing is that if I create a spline in illustrator and export it as a dfx, when I bring it back it works fine.

Thanks for taking a look 🙂

Think illustrator only reads\write degree 3 splines, Fusion can create splines higher than 3. In this case it is a degree 5 here open in Rhino. You can also import back into Fusion and when selected it shows degree 5 at the bottom right of the screen.

Mark

Re: DXF Export Spline curves

sebmorales — Fri, 20 Mar 2020 17:40:34 GMT

Would it then be possible to export as a degree 3 spline instead?

Re: DXF Export Spline curves

HughesTooling — Fri, 20 Mar 2020 18:11:01 GMT

@sebmorales wrote:

Would it then be possible to export as a degree 3 spline instead?

Not an expert on splines and what's possible but when I've experimented reducing the degree in Rhino you lose accuracy. Have you got a DXF from illustrator with a similar spline you can share here? You'll need to zip the DXF to be able to add it as an attachment. I'm interested to see what it import like in Fusion and Rhino.

Thanks Mark

Re: DXF Export Spline curves

sebmorales — Fri, 20 Mar 2020 18:46:15 GMT

I quickly traced the same shape (could get much closer to the original if I needed). Attached is the DXF file out of AI. Also, it seems to still be correct after re-importing back to AI.