Saving DXF's Am I missing something?

[Mattxer]

I find sketching on models to be frustrating sometimes. I do a good amount of Wire EDM work and creating sketches and saving DXF's is something I do very often. The biggest issue i have is when sketching is the auto projected geometry. For constraints creates lines and when I save as a dxf these projected lines are included often overlapping and my EDM gets quite angry about this haha. I would like to see some work put into "save as dxf" like an option to ignore projected geometry or something unless this is something that already exists? One of the things i liked about solidworks when exporting a dxf is you get a preview, you can delete lines before you finalize the save. 

[John_Wright]

I'm 99% sure that turning of auto projection in preferences will solve your issue. I don't know quite why it is not on a shortcut when the sketch dialogue box opens.

[Mattxer]

I tried turning that off but it still creates projected lines when snapping to an edge like so:

I then tried turning off Auto project edges on reference here:

But with both of those off i can no longer snap to points or edges:

[John_Wright]

Ahhh, okay I see what is happening. Have you tried turning the projected lines into construction lines by selecting them and pressing X?

DXF export seems to be a complete minefield in all CAD systems. Incredibly frustrating at times. 

[John_Wright]

Scratch that, it made no difference to the line being there or not. I'm out of ideas now sorry.

[johnswetz1982]

It sounds like you do need SOME projected lines but dont want them to be projected when you go to export your DXF. Have you tried selecting the lines that are projected such as in your example with needing the edges/points and then breaking the projection link to make them regular lines in your sketch that you would then export?

  

[Mattxer]

@John_Wright Thanks for the suggestions was worth a shot. Honestly with some of the cad systems I've used solidworks by far has the best DXF exporting feature. It's definitely lacking some TLC in fusion.

@johnswetz1982 This issue is not that I can't export projected lines, It's the opposite, I don't want the projected lines to be in the DXF because it leaves multiple short segments or lines from the constraint geometry and when I import that DXF in my Wire EDM for example these segments/lines which are overlapping cause issues when generating tool paths. Basically now I have to manual delete each projected line after I draw my sketch and then lock it in place with the anchor constraint which gets pretty tedious especially when its hard to figure out what is a projected line and what is not (when they're overlapping).

Ideally I feel like it should be an option when exporting to either include or exclude projected geometry.

[HughesTooling]

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@Mattxer wrote:

I tried turning that off but it still creates projected lines when snapping to an edge like so:

I then tried turning off Auto project edges on reference here:

But with both of those off i can no longer snap to points or edges:

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Could you just press P and project in just points? Do points cause problems in the exported DXF?

Mark

[Mattxer]

Points actually don't get exported into DXF's which I don't know if that's intended or not. But that looks like a decent workaround for now. Still just tedious to have to project a bunch of points then connect them.

Thanks for the insight Its much better than nothing at this point haha.

[HughesTooling]

Personally I turned off all the auto projection as it add too much clutter to sketches. I find it a lot cleaner to just project whole lines\curves and points I need. This is for design not export.

Mark

[Mattxer]

Yeah, I agree it gets quite cluttered, but I do like to be able to quicky snap to an edge or point when drawing on the model. And you could just un-check "show projected Geometries" in the sketch pallet if you don't want too see them but still be able to snap to things. Unfortunately this has no effect on DXF exporting.