topic Re: DXF broken lines in Fusion Support Forum

DXF broken lines

jknoetze — Tue, 23 Apr 2024 09:31:20 GMT

Broken lines appear in DXF files when opened in CorelDRAW by my laser cutting service provider. How do I overcome this?

Re: DXF broken lines

Warmingup1953 — Tue, 23 Apr 2024 10:19:47 GMT

My guess is Splines. Can you share your Fusion file and advise what you need Laser cut?

Re: DXF broken lines

jknoetze — Tue, 23 Apr 2024 11:39:18 GMT

https://1drv.ms/u/s!AphS4uLSMfHXgsR3WA66NyKg7pk7XA?e=xC4yht

Thanks for responding - hope you can access the file

Re: DXF broken lines

MRWakefield — Tue, 23 Apr 2024 13:00:33 GMT

The DXF is useful but as @Warmingup1953 said: we really need your Fusion f3d file to test with.

BTW: It's always better to attach the file rather than provide a link. Screenshots are also a useful addition so that people can immediately see what the issue is. I'd also recommend replying to a specific post rather than the 'Reply' at the bottom of the thread. Use the first button rather than the second one.

Thanks.

Re: DXF broken lines

MRWakefield — Tue, 23 Apr 2024 14:26:28 GMT

Ok, I see now that this is an export from a drawing rather than the model directly. This is what I see when I open it in CorelDraw 2018:

I can't see anything obvious missing but without the Fusion file or a screenshot it's difficult to see what might be missing.

EDIT:

Or do you mean that everything is made up of individual lines/arcs etc. rather than joined like a Polyline might be?

Re: DXF broken lines

MRWakefield — Wed, 24 Apr 2024 00:02:33 GMT

Ok, I've been fiddling around with this for a while now, trying to join up all the individual vectors into single closed shapes (I'm assuming that's the issue you're having). I've tried joining them in CorelDraw, Inkscape, NanoCAD and LibreCAD. The only one I had any success with was LibreCAD. By using the "Create Polyline from Existing Segments" function I managed to get everything joined up. It's ok for a relatively simple one-off case like your example but I wouldn't want to do many like this as it requires quite a bit of manual work. The problem with it was that there was an issue when importing the LibreCAD modified DXF in CorelDraw (it was fine when imported into all the other apps I tried so it looks like a bug in my version of Corel).

This is how the LibreCAD modified DXF looks when imported into CorelDraw 2018:

As you can see some of the radiuses have gone a bit loopy! As I said, it looks fine in other software.

I have a hobby diode laser machine and some of my designs are done in Fusion. I also use a similar workflow to you, creating drawings from a solid model then importing into CorelDraw to do some editing, then into LightBurn to drive my laser. I tend to export the Fusion drawing as PDF as opposed to DXF as it supports multiple pages whereas the DXF export only supports a single page. I have the same issue (with discontinuous vectors) but LightBurn has a very handy feature called "Auto-Join selected shapes". I don't know what software your supplier uses but it's possible that whatever they do use might have a similar function. However, this might be less than ideal as it means more work for the subcontractor and an excuse to charge more!

I did one final test and rather than exporting a drawing as DXF I instead created a new sketch and projected the relevant face, then saved this sketch as a DXF. In this case all the shapes came out as fully connected polylines:

I don't know whether this is a suitable workflow for you?

I really must go to bed now as it's way past my bedtime!!

Hope this helps.

Re: DXF broken lines

Warmingup1953 — Wed, 24 Apr 2024 21:27:37 GMT

OK yes I can access your file (.dxf). It appears you are creating your .dxf in the Drawing workspace? Your laser subbie almost certainly wants a simple 2D .dxf file and these are best created from a Single sketch that has all the geometry needed and NOTHING else. What Licence are you using?

you'll need to remove the .txt suffix from my attached .dxf file

Re: DXF broken lines

MRWakefield — Wed, 24 Apr 2024 22:05:58 GMT

It looks like your DXF suffers with similar issues to the 'loopy' one I showed in my post above. This is what the DXF you posted looks like when imported into CorelDraw 2018.

As I said in my post above: this looks like a bug in CorelDraw (at least in 2018, which is the version I'm testing with). Unfortunately we don't know which version(s) the subcontractor is using but like I said above it seems to work when you save a sketch as DXF (as you've also suggested). It might be that a dimensioned drawing is accompanied by a DXF generated directly from the sketch would be the best way forward for @jknoetze.

EDIT:

I thought I'd better do a test, so I imported your DXF into Fusion, created an extrusion, created a new sketch and projected the face. I then saved this new sketch as a DXF and imported it into CorelDraw. This is what I get:

So... it seems that although this method works in terms of creating 'joined-up' geometry there are still potential issues with getting them into CorelDraw correctly! Anyway, I think we've probably done all we can on the Fusion side of things.