cleanup DXF sketch exports

[roambotics_scott]

I'm getting some things laser and waterjet cut and had to export sketches as 2D DXFs.

Apparently those (just projections of cut pieces on a surface) include at least a few double-stroked lines and curves.

Users can clean that up in Inkscape or Illustrator but it'd be great not to have to.

Edit: this is worse than I thought. As far as I can tell, every line and curve is double-stroked so cleaning that up manually will be an enormous PITA.

[daniel_lyall]

you get the handle for spline`s, curvres, and a few other bit`s that are not meant to be there. if you use, export to DXF (spline as polylines) it`s not so bad there is another way to do that works it  @TrippyLighting know`s about 

[TrippyLighting]

Yes, however IMHO it's a workarond that should not be necessary. I would consider exporting the spline handles as a bug. I did not experience double strokes.

I simply extrude the sketch into 3D space and then project the extruded outlines onto another sketch that  gets exported to DXF.

The projectd sketch is clean that does not show these problems.

[daniel_lyall]

@TrippyLighting yep bug it is 

but you show how to do it in a way that works (work around to it`s fixed) @roambotics_scott sorry but I know you hate work around but for other`s it`s need to know

[roambotics_scott]

Fair enough, @daniel_lyall, but in this case every single curve is duplicated so yeah I can manually go in and clean it up but that turns something that could be a 5-10 minute process into well over an hour of picking over minutia.

I'm not sure what's going on with the double stroke but it's consistent and reliable in my exports cpZ0nA.dxf

[daniel_lyall]

it is a bad bug they know about it 

that will help them find it maybe

[HughesTooling]

When you use project are you projecting to a plane or are you selecting a face to use as a plane. I've done a couple of tests and I'm not getting any double lines using a plane. Using a face to project to can make some double lines because the edges of the face are auto projected, can you attach an example.

[daniel_lyall]

just export a sketch as a dxf 

[HughesTooling]

I did and opened it in Rhino and not a single double line!

[HughesTooling]

I read the first post again and see now you're using sketches from the design process not new sketches with just projected lines, I see how you get double lines like that ignore my other posts.

[roambotics_scott]

No these are brand new sketches.

Select surface -> activate sketch -> project -> close sketch -> export as dxf -> open in Inkscape -> every curve is in there twice

I did attach an example above but here it is again - cpZ0nA.dxf.

[HughesTooling]

When you use a face for a sketch it is auto projected to the sketch before you do any thing, try just Select surface -> activate sketch  -> close sketch -> export as dxf without the project or create a plane first then project and you don't get all the double lines.

[roambotics_scott]

I just spent serveral hours manually cleaning up a ton of duplicate lines in some exports going off for laser cutting.

Not quite as bad as a crash, but a pretty major PITA time sink that I do not ever wish to repeat.

I don't know how or who to lobby to get this fixed.

[carl_bass]

Send us the file and we'd love to fix it. I'll make sure it gets done

On the other hand, I'm shocked you're still using fusion with all the bitching you do about it

[Discussion_Admin]

@roambotics_scott I suggest a post in Design and Documentation pointing to this idea asking for the community to support it

Thanks
Discussion_Admin

[Anonymous]

In case someone is still experiencing problems with double lines in the DXF output, here is what worked for me:

1) create the sketch that will contain the projection on the plane that is offset from the projected face (Construct -> Offset plane)

2) Sketch -> Project/include -> Project;

3) In "Selection filter" choose "specified entities"

4) Click on the face, -> OK, -> stop sketch;

5) export sketch as DXF

After that I did not have the double lines my DXF files.

[promm]

The workflow @Anonymous suggests prevents reference projected geometry from being selected for export.  When you select a face to sketch on the geometry is projected behind the scenes, so that it can be referenced.  This is not the desired workflow and the team is exploring which environment to provide a real .dxf export.   Here is the list of enhancements we will be working on for the real dxf export.

1. Discoverability
2. Save to previous version (back to 2000)
3. Layers
4. Colors
5. Text (notes)
6. Selection in export - auto-clean
7. Preview
8. Scale

Cheers,

Mike Prom

[Anonymous]

My DXF for Laser add-in produces clean DXF's and can compensate for kerf - AND can put cutouts and the perimeter on separate layers in a single DXF file. 

[daniel_lyall]

@Anonymous yes it can, they are doing it native to fusion 

[Anonymous]

@daniel_lyall ya, they'll get to it eventually and i see no mention of exporting multiple sketches to a single DXF or splitting cutouts from perimeters, but who knows, they might support that too.