Export 2D Drawings as Vector Art for Use as Icons, etc.

[Anonymous]

This request is different than "Exporting Drawings as Illustrator files (AI.)" - an issue for which a solution was provided.

I'd like to be able to export my 2D drawings as vector art in a non-PDF format (.svg, .ai) so that I can use dimensions, icons, etc. in my product brochures and website.  I currently make these in a combination of Illustrator and InDesign, and either up recreate my products as vector art from scratch or tracing the PDF output.

This is an important part of product development (the assets needed to actually convey and sell the product), and a gap missing in AutoCAD products.

Concerning my solutions two paragraphs up, the former is redundant, and the latter doesn't work well.  As mentioned in the case I referenced above, the quality of the curves exported into PDFs from Fusion360 isn't good enough to work with meaningfully, and I don't think an improvment in resolution will resolve this issue.  We need the actual vector file format in order for this to work properly for all use cases.

It seems there must be something on the backend doing this already, as I can seamlessly change my scale from 1:8 to 1:16 with no loss of resolution in 2D Drawings.

Thanks!

[HughesTooling]

A quick question about PDF output. After reading your request I thought I test opening a PDF in Rhino to see what came through and it seems quite good, arcs are arcs and smooth curves come through.

Here's a screen shot. Are all your PDFs bad or is it some parts. To see the image better right click and select open in new tab.

Mark

[Anonymous]

@HughesTooling thanks for the quick response!  It does work on simple vectors, but I see major issues on details.  See the difference in quality between the dimensioning (which seems to translate perfectly) and the part's curves, which are definitely not the arcs (semicircles in this case) they should be.

[Anonymous]

Here's the PDF of the entire part as a reference.  This was opened in Adobe Illustrator CC 2015.1.  As you can see, the stroke is terribly thick.  On the detail shot above I actually brought it down a few points within illustrator.

[HughesTooling]

I tried another part and see what you mean now. 

This looks OK until I zoom in, Rhino makes all the lines zero width which helps.

But when I zoom in it looks pretty bad and is pretty useless.

Mark

[cekuhnen]

Sadly to be honest the vector quality Fusion generates is junk - pure junk.

I never encountered any application doing just a terrible job.

This renders the drawings useless for anything else such as generating paths for CNC laser cut and such.

You can only use it to print documents as for that purpose I think it is sufficiently fine.

I still export the STEP data and then we do the rest in a different application because Fusion just plain fails here

such as for Illustration purpose to lasercutting and such.

This is quite frustrating for the students because while you have build in CNC and simulation tools you can only use

if you have use for it and the machines, drawings are a much more used area and it is bottom line unusable for anything else

then print documents.

This is also not a new complained but rather old.

[TimeraAutodesk]

Thanks all for you input. I see two main issues/requests here:

1. Export to vector (svg). This is likely a feature that we won't be able to get to for another year or so, after we tackle the remaining items on our current roadmap.

2. Better PDF output. There is a bug here that we have not been able to crack, but that continues to be investigated by the team.

Thanks,
Timera

[Anonymous]

You nailed it! Completely understood on (1), but it's actually less
important since I can open the PDF in Adobe Illustrator and manipulate
acceptably.

(2) would be a HUGE win if you could crack it - it's making PDF drawings
unreadable for many of our fabricators who don't work in 3D and really
hampering communicating designs.