DXF file hangs on import - 4 days and counting

[beauglehalld]

Hi,

There's a lot of posts on DXF files taking a long time to import, but the solutions involve getting the author to edit the original file or someone converting it for the person asking. There were a couple of other hints like changing to "single layer" import.

The file I'm trying to open is a public one from Behringer, so I have no control over the source file ( https://mediadl.musictribe.com/download/documents/behringer/CAD/X32.dxf ).  

As mentioned in the title, 4 days and counting to open it.

Any ideas from anyone, or, at 82mb, is this just "too big and complex" for Fusion?  I don't have autocad to open it in either.

[hamid.sh.]

What is your end goal with importing this file?

It is indeed too big, and it contains multiple views which anyway are not useful in a single sketch. So you should separate the file into several views and import those you really need, at their corresponding planes. Moreover there are A LOT of repeated profiles that should be realized by feature pattern in Fusion and not in sketch, so you'd delete repetitions from DXF file(s). Also keep in mind it's at 1:10 scale. All in all you'd better edit this DXF before import. If you don't have AutoCAD you can go for free alternatives (e.g. nanoCAD Free).

[beauglehalld]

Thanks for the reply. However, as indicated in my original post, it's not my file. As I can't open it in anything I can't edit it to remove the different views, etc.  If I was able to open it in something/anything, I wouldn't have been posting this question in the first place.

I'm not sure what your sentence about opening it in Fusion and not Sketch is about, as I *am* opening it in Fusion, and I don't know what you mean by Sketch...

[hamid.sh. · Accepted solution]

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@beauglehalld wrote:

... it's not my file. As I can't open it in anything...

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Yes, you can, with the free software I already mentioned in my previous reply. And with this big file file opening it in a DWG editor or viewer is possibly your ONLY chance, forget about importing this directly in Fusion. Some tasks just need a different tool.

Again, what is your goal of importing this in Fusion 360?

If it is just viewing and measuring then you have quite a lot of free options, e.g. Autodesk Viewer or eDrawings.

If you need parts of this drawing in your modeling (which I doubt as it seems you use Fusion for a different purpose, perhaps Electronics Design), then you definitely need to edit this file first outside Fusion. For this you can use NanoCAD Free or another free software.

Or at least mark the area you are interested in and I will delete the other parts for you, so the file will be lighter and hopefully importable into Fusion 360. I have attached the PDF version.

[HughesTooling]

Just to give you an idea why Fusion is struggling, the DXF has over 60,000 curves!

What do you want to try and do with this if you get it into Fusion? Because the part has an angled top, the views are projections to the XY plane and not very clean curves they will not be much use in Fusion.

Just this small area has around 500 curves.

[beauglehalld]

My apologies - I missed the reference to nanoCad.   As for end-goals - that's "loosely floating". One will be to 3D print a scale model, another will be to export something I can then import into Sketchup.  Another is just curiosity of what is there... I'm still learning Fusion and will hopefully know/use as much functionality as possible (yes, I know... that's a lot covering many different disciplines).

I also wanted to get to a "real" solution (which you have given me) as many of the other posts people have (kindly) given the OP a fish, not taught them how to fish.  Access to free CAD software has, essentially, taught me to fish. 🙂

[hamid.sh.]

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@beauglehalld wrote:

My apologies - I missed the reference to nanoCad.   As for end-goals - that's "loosely floating". One will be to 3D print a scale model, another will be to export something I can then import into Sketchup.  Another is just curiosity of what is there... I'm still learning Fusion and will hopefully know/use as much functionality as possible (yes, I know... that's a lot covering many different disciplines).

I also wanted to get to a "real" solution (which you have given me) as many of the other posts people have (kindly) given the OP a fish, not taught them how to fish.  Access to free CAD software has, essentially, taught me to fish. 🙂

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Glad I helped 😊

So after all you are going to make a 3D model of the part from DXF. You see, even if that DXF was not this heavy still it wouldn't be a recommended working flow to import it into Fusion to construct a 3D model. This should only be used as reference while using Fusion's own tools to make the design.

I think best thing you can do is first familiars yourself with the design procedure in Fusion. And for this, starting by an imported DXF is not a good option at all. You should draw your own sketches and use them for your design (don't worry, once I also didn't know what a "sketch" means. You can learn, as I and everyone else learned). I don't have any particular tutorial in my mind but I guess it's good start to look at this page especially Fusion 360 fundamentals.