Autocad Files and the laser

[James Stokes]

I get a lot of autocad files for engraving and cutting, I have never been able to take that file and cut with it, The corners were never connected, the lines were all seperate. I allways had to re-draw in corel, Not any more. If all of the lines are converted to polylines before it leaves autocad then every thing is connected in corel. Every one probably allready knows this but me.

[Joe Pelonio]

That's typical. I have some regulars that send me dxf or dwg files and I've manage to train them to give me artwork that runs, but even then the points are not connected so it cuts in sections rather than continuously. I don't know any easy way around it, because most people using CAD don't have or know how to use Corel or Adobe to fix it right. I just charge them for the extra time.

[Kenneth Hertzog]

I've have done a fair amount of drawing in CAD and sent it to the laser for cutting. I have found that it seems to cut the same way the lines were drawn. If I drew a box and erased a line and drew it later it would cut that line later also. I've tried just about everything to correct or make it so it cuts a continous line but nothing seems to work. I tried to import into corel with some files and it will cut the same line many times.
I also have a file to send to the laser DXF files but it will only vector cut but with power and speed settings you can achieve other results.
ken

[James Stokes]

Like I say convert it all to polylines and it will cut in one piece.

[Joe Pelonio]

I'll pass that on to my customers and hope they do it!

[George D Gabert]

In AutoCad I change my lines to .00mm prior to saving as DXF. this forces the lines to be single hairlines and not multipass lines to duplicate the line thiockness from the original DXF file.

You still need to join to combine segments.

[Kevin Groenke]

Being in an architecture school we are cutting out of autocad almost exclusively. It won't join corners, but the OVERKILL function in acad is a useful tool for unifying lines and getting rid of duplicates. Say I made a checkerboard by offsetting 64) 1" boxes, it will change the drawing to 81) 9" lines instead of 256) 1" lines. This can really improve cutting efficiency. By adjusting the "numeric fuzz" you can get rid of errant lines that are not quite on top of each other. We often overkill a file by default if we suspect the user is a sloppy one.

The corner joining function would be great and should be available, I'll have to ask our acad gurus if there is something that will to this that I don't know about.

g'luck
-kg

[James Stokes]

Overkill is a new one to me, I will have to check in to that. It looks like it converts to polylines.
To convert to polylines use the pedit command. The computer will then ask if you want a single line or multiple, type m and enter then select all the lines you want to convert, hit enter again, you will then get another box with the join option there, click join, then it asks for fuzz amount. I leave that at 0.
If you want to turn the object into 3-d you then extrude.