Lines in sheetcam not matching corel

[HammerDownJustin]

Anyone else ever have this issue. Draw a part up in Corel and then open in sheetcam and the lines go straight and all the sudden jump over a hair? Only happens on squares and rectangles mainly..earlier was drawing a L bracket. Simply took a 12" square and made a copy. Then pasted it and moved it 2" lower and 2" to the left and drew 2 lines at each end and cut the rest out for a 12"x12" l bracket. Then when I open it in sheetcam to do cut paths it no longer had perfect lines. Designed in X4 and for the heck of it opened in Corel 7 and resaved to make sure it wasnt just because of a older version and still the same.

12x12Lbracket4packquoted $10 each.dxf

(196.85 KiB) Downloaded 65 times

[HammerDownJustin]

You can see the crooked spot

[HammerDownJustin]

I can reopen it and redraw the line and save then put back into sheetcam and will be nice and smooth. Just wondering if there is something that causes this?

[SeanP]

I just tried opening that file and it crashed sheetcam for some reason, opened it up in Corel 7 and saved as dxf again, still crashed sheetcam, so I saved it as svg and that loaded fine, no nicked corners.
I tend not to use corel for those sort of jobs, keep it for lettering and curvy stuff, I would always get a better result saving to svg with corel.

[HammerDownJustin]

Thank you sir. I have never messed with svg . It might be time to start and I have autocad but have never even loaded it up. Might install and start learning how to use it for this stuff. Thx again.

[HammerDownJustin]

Just opened this one and two other old files by saving them as svg and opens perfect..Glad I finally asked. Thank you again.

[SeanP]

Good stuff, I haven't yet seen a file that doesn't load ok in sheetcam using corel and the svg format.

I am using solidworks for dimensional jobs, it takes a bit of learning like most software though.
Dxf files from that are never a problem in sheetcam.
Plenty folks do use corel for those sort of jobs, it just has a different way of dimension parts, I find it useful seeing parts 3d and the sheetmetal side is spot on.

[Bigdogbro1]

Good stuff, I haven't yet seen a file that doesn't load ok in sheetcam using corel and the svg format.

I am using solidworks for dimensional jobs, it takes a bit of learning like most software though.
Dxf files from that are never a problem in sheetcam.
Plenty folks do use corel for those sort of jobs, it just has a different way of dimension parts, I find it useful seeing parts 3d and the sheetmetal side is spot on.

Hi Sean,

I use Solidworks and have been having the problem I can't seem to find a solution for. I want to do some 3D sheet metal designs but cannot get files to convert properly. When I OPEN a 2D DXF file in Sheetcam the outlines are no longer curved but instead many straight segments. Polylines, splines, convert? If I import the DXF into Inkscape to do some general adjustments in a vector mode to smooth curves etc. ALL the line are segmented as individual lines and the nodes are not connected to each other. I prefer to cut using SVG files but in order to make a 3D metal design I need to model it first in Solidworks.

My thread explaining the problem.
http://www.plasmaspider.com/viewtopic.php?f=77&t=18069

Any insight would be appreciated.

[SeanP]

That's strange I always get really smooth files from Solidworks, if it's just a 2d part I just create the drawing, extrude it to thickness, then right click on the face and export to dxf/dwg, R14 is all I use.
Even opening the SW dxf in Corel, its perfect, no flat spots.

[tcaudle]

You have to understand that DXF has almost as many flavors as Baskin_Robins. There are tow places fro every file to get honkered: The export (which can break all of the arcs into line segments and the import where it may balk at a file exported with a version it does not know how to open. CorelDraw does neither one very well. To them, if it prints out okay then its good. Where CorelDraw and Inkscape are really good is if you do the drawing in those packages and then export in a foramt that supports the arc and curves in the native formats. There are several vector formats that support full arcs and curves (AI, PS/EPS, EMF, SVG, PDF, CDR) . Those file formats are pretty defined and the imports follow the definition. Coreldraw imports AI, PS/EPS, SVG and CDR complete with complex curves , text and formating inlcuing line widths , colors and embedded bitmaps. DXF is up to the export and version and the import and what it supports.