DWG and DXF output for laser cutting sheet

[Anonymous]

In the last few weeks I have output DWG files for 11 items connected to having sheet metal parts for a personal project laser cut. I should say I am very new to this, having last used CAD 30 years ago, and am finding the learning curve very steep. So take it easy on me eh?.

The DWGs, one as a sigle item, one with 3 items in the design  and one with 7, ( inserted into one design from the individual designs),  went to one company who couldnt open them ( current output 2013 file). I resent after opening in and saving from DWG Trueview as 2004 files, with slightly more success.  They managed to part open and modify 3. After much trouble, i decided to try another laser company, who use Sigma nest. They could not open any of my DWGs in 2013 as output from Fusion, so I did the DWg trueview again as all 2004, 2007, and 2010 files,  again they had issues, most wouldnt open, although a couple did as drawings showing dimension lines only and no object or body.  I tried to open all files sent them in Librecad to see what I would get, and a free DWG viewer, as all opened fine in DWG Trueview, not a single item opened ok in these two other programs?

The Laser company asked if I would send as DXF as having so much trouble, so I sent 11 seperate DXF's, of which 4 failed again, although 3 opened ok in Librecad, of those 4,  3 had lines drawn with the conic curve function, and the guy at the company had said that might be an issue. I have now redone the one of the 4 which failed in Libre and the DXF, and that opened ok in Libre, leaving 3 failed DXF, which they are going to redraw themselves from a copy of my sketch dimensions.

After much hassle and several late nights I would like to get to the bottom of what is going wrong, as I cannot see why so much failing, are Fusion Files only useable from Autodesk products? , as if so it means everyone should be having the same issues at Laser companies as I have with two of them? How do I correct, in case its me doing something in error?  In case my email is needed it's billyread@btinternet.com

many thanks

Bill Read

[HughesTooling]

This is a long time problem and there are many post on it. The short answer is the DWGs are in a format only AutoCAD can open. Some people have had luck saving to an older version from DWG Trueview and opening in Draftsight, can't remember the version 2010 I think. If you have AutoCad you need to use EXPORTLAYOUT to extract the drawing view.

Mark

[ryan.bales · Accepted solution]

This is certainly something that comes up quite often. The Drawings Team is working on a DWG export with exploded model space views but its a ways out. 

If you are using Sheet Metal - why not use Derive with the flat patterns? you can then create a sketch and project the flat patterns, export to DXF.