Import DXF to sketch - Error when changing units

[Anonymous]

Hi,

Most often I do my sketches in Adobe Illustrator since they are based on artworks. I export to DXF which I later on import to Fusion 360. Most of the time it goes smooth and I get exactly what I want.

But now I have encountered an issue which is making me really confused. The same issue has occurred for me earlier but with me being able to find a workaround, but it is definitely something that happens from time to time, and it's really driving me crazy.

Please see the attached image.

When I import a DXF drawing, all areas within the lines of the drawing appears bright yellow, which is also how it should be. But as soon as I change the units of the drawing (from Inches or Centimeters) to Millimeters, some lines of the drawing suddenly doesn't appear to be possible to use in the application. I can see them in the drawing, but the areas within them do not appear yellow and I am not able to press/pull anything from them. I'm neither able to offset the path.

On another note. When importing DXF files into artworks the default setting is always set at "Inches", but since I work after the metric system (like all sane humans should), I always have to change units to Millimeters which forces the software to reload the artwork and resize it every time, which steals time. Is it possible somehow to change the default setting to Millimeters directly so I don't have to change this every single time? If not, could someone at Autodesk please add such a function for features developments?

Thanks in advance!

Best regards,

Alexander

[HughesTooling]

This probably all comes down to illustrator not saving to enough decimal places a lot of programs used to save to only 8 places in the past probably because that was the default in AutoCAD. Anyone working with CNCs made sure to set it to 16 or you'd get these problems.

Fusion can read the units info from the file it's importing, what units are you working in in Illustrator? Have you got a DXF you can share. Think you'll need to ZIP it before you'll be able to uploaded it here.

Mark

[Anonymous]

Thanks for your reply.

I've checked the DXF export window to see if I can specify more decimals, but can't find any such settings (see attachment).

It's possible that what you say is correct. However, I find it weird that it can import the file without any issue if choosing another unit type. Shouldn't the issue apply on all units if so?

[Anonymous]

And here is also the DXF file I have the issue with.

[see attachment]

[HughesTooling · Accepted solution]

Your problem is a 0.002mm segment here. I'm guessing at CM or Inches the floating point math for its endpoints and the endpoints of the splines it's connected to are within tolerance but with mm scale it fails. If you delete the segment and rejoin you get a closed profile. As for the units when opening the DXF, the insunits are set to inches so that's why you're always seeing inches on the insert dialog. Seem to remember this came up before on the forum.

Digging even deeper there this line as well, joined to the 0.002mm segment. Only way I've found to fix is delete all 4 of the curves in this area and draw a new arc. So the problem is junk in junk out! 

I've attached the file, use window zoom to find the problem.

Mark

[Anonymous]

Well done! That really explain things. Seems like when I added some of the patterns/lines into the artwork, some overlap must have occurred that caused this.

Illustrator is not 100% accurate and this is actually not the first time I see some offset positioning of this kind.

Now I know for the future. Thanks!

[HughesTooling]

Don't know if you've seen this thread on how to find gaps\problem with sketches, it might come in useful.

Mark

Edit. Used wrong link.