Art to .dxf problems

I need some help gentlemen.

We have an opportunity for some much needed work cutting flooring and signs on our waterjets.

But ...

We are having problems getting usable profiles to program from.

The customer is sending us .pdf files of artwork and text.

We currently have a guy who opens these in Adobe Illustrator and saves them off as .dxf files for us.

He has (AFAIK) used every available option but they are still a mess.

Whether we import them into Solidworks or straight into Mastercam we have broken profiles, multiple overlaying entities, or at best complex splines.

Best case scenario is with the splines ...

Two of our waterjets will cut splines, but the splines so complex it takes them much longer than it should with the constant acceleration/deceleration on thousands (or tens of thousands) of entities.

Our third jet will not import a spline so we have to explode it to machine it and, again there is the acc/dec problem on so many entities.

Simplifying the profiles manually in Mastercam on the other hand is very time consuming.

If we can't make this easier and speed up the programming and cutting times this work will go elsewhere ... and we really need this work now.

So ...

(Assuming you cannot get a .dwg/.dxf from the customer)

What are the rest of you using/doing to make this process easier and faster?

I've used OneCNC's 'trace image' function a few times on artwork. I have no idea of how much info is stored in a pdf, but it might work better to take a screenshot of the pdf, save as an image, then use a trace image function in your CAD to make a somewhat cleaner file. Scale it to suit after it is traced.

There is always some image noise to clean up, but at least I get just a fairly simple geometry file out of it, without the double entities, and in the form of lines and arcs only, and with decent trim. Still, I might spend an hour or two fixing the image, but I get paid for it.

What kind of waterjets are you using? I've found Omax layout is very good at dealing with all sorts of file formats. PDFs have never been a problem, though PDF is so broad and old I could easily imagine difficult cases. For Omax going to DXF via = Illustrator will not help things in my experience.

On that note, what is the customer drawing in? Not PDF obviously. Maybe (s)he can send it in a different format? You've probably thought of this already....

We have a pair if Jetedge machines and a Flow.

What our customer is being supplied to work with I do not know but apparently they can only supply us with .pdf files ...

It's been a very long time since I've had to deal with this on the waterjet side of operations but as then, "tracing" over the .dxf that we get out of Adobe seems to be the only solution at the moment.

I have Solidworks (which I hardy ever use) and Mastercam on my computer at work.

Is there a better, faster, easier way of doing this with just those are am I constrained to using the (dirty) .dxf I'm being supplied?

Are there settings in Adobe Illustrator that will output a better .dxf?

Is there another software that will do a better job on the .pdf to .dxf conversion?

Doug said:

I know exactly what you mean about Illustrator. The problem is it's a graphics program and what is okay with graphics is not so okay with what you're doing.

My favorite is a raster to vector converter, Cutting Shop, from Arbor Image (around $500). It accepts JPEG input. It does a good job of recognizing arcs rather than spitting out millions of short lines. With a PDF I could take a screen shot and convert from that.

Another program I've used is Print2CAD ($250??) designed to convert PDF's to DXF. An odd program in that it doesn't use the usual drop down menu style everyone is so used to.

Obviously both the above are not going to be super accurate in their translations so you can figure minor touch up in CAD (certain things like line crossing and closely spaced line don't always translate so well). . Perfectly good for logos, etc. If you need critical dimensions like maybe hole locations do that on the DXF in CAD.

Click to expand...

Will check those out, thank you.

Tell them PDF is not good its costing a lot more, you need some kinda vector file format. Find out what it was originally created in and go from there.

I don't know whether this has any relevance to a waterjet control, but I once had to get a bunch of company logos done in vinyl for the industrial park sign at the end of our street. The signmakers said the bitmap images I generated in Photoshop couldn't be followed and that they needed vector images. Lacking the software to do that, I reasoned that since that the human eye can't detect sharpness in a printed image at any finer resolution than about 300 pixels per inch (equivalent to the old 150 line halftone screen) possibly the optical scanning device might be subject to being fooled in the same way. So I gave them .tif files, type and all, at 1000ppi and the machine spit out perfect signs. If you can get the customer to give you high enough resolution art in a native format and not PDF, maybe it would work.

Illustrator trace has many parameters to alter to get the image you want. Some just dont convert well. If you want to send me a similar image I will see if I can get a better vector. I made logos in my younger days. Often I would run it in Photoshop first to cut out background, then darken what I wanted. That way AI trace had plenty of contrast. I have never used the programs mentioned above so they might be a better option.

Depending on the actual format of the pdf files, you will get different results from the conversion.

A good converter will convert a vector pdf(yes, contrary to what was stated above,many pdf files contain vector information-if it is from a scan, though, it will likely be bitmapped) to a very simple and usable dxf file.

I use the free service at:

PDF to DXF | Zamzar - Free online file conversion

It works very well, and you will get the converted file almost instantaneously.

From the early days of computers GIGO. Garbage In produces Garbage Out! Other than Adobe Acrobat I don't believe than there is any program whose native file format is PDF. It is very likely the native format of the program making the artwork is in a better format than PDF. Or the person producing the artwork is just a hack with no concept the garbage they are producing. You see lots of this with cad users.

Years ago the company my wife worked for paid to have someone that everyone said was a real expert come in and teach her how to format some documents using Word Perfect. She quickly discovered the person was a hack that did all kinds of arcane stuff because she had no idea how the program really worked. My wife wound up teaching the women that was supposed to be teaching her!

Hi KilrB, I regularly do this sort of stuff (today actually) with a program called CorelDraw. You can download a trial version for 15 days to test drive. I've used other programs and have gotten stuff to work but this software is seamless. If you need any help let me know.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

yep I use Corel alot also for using on the laser as well as logos machined into parts.

the process to use really depends on what is available to you from your customer be it just the part, part+PDF' PDF+pics and so on.

car2 said:

Many drawing/line elements in PDF's are actually vector data. A PDF (or virtually any file format) drawing/drafting file can be imported into Corel, and all the line-elements come in as vectors, even to scale of the original PDF. (I've used it in the past for creating models in NX from projected views gleaned from PDF files). PDF Text and formatting elements are another story, and some of that may be chicken-scratch when imported that must be deleted. In Corel, you can manipulate all the splines, lines, arcs if there are any errant elements that need correcting/adding, then export a DXF, HPGL, etc may be exported. If the particular cutter control has trouble with splines, then this may require importing the DXF file back into a CAD program to "simplify" the splines into arcs. When using an Epilog laser cutter, there is absolutely no problem with any spline configuration in Corel for vector cutting.

There is also a "trace" function in Corel that will trace the outline of objects, graphics, and then the outlines generally need to be cleaned up a bit.

Click to expand...

PDF is Adobe's Portable Document Format... think of it as a container into which to pour your document that will preserve the original formatting. Therein lies the problem; you can't get any more out of a PDF than was originally put in. If the file was created in one of the graphic arts programs, Corral Draw or Adobe Illustrator, it will be a vector drawing, easy to convert, but containing many splines. If the original was simply a scanned image, it will be a bit map.

Some of the various auto-trace utilities work better than others, and much depends on the quality of the bit map being traced. The problem is usually that the jagged edge of the bit map image causes the auto trace to make a million little spline segments, trying to reproduce the jaggedness of the edge.

Dennis

Thanks for mentioning that Arbor Image Cutting Shop (Arbor Image Cutting Shop - dynatorch)

that looks like a solid application for work like this. I don't do it often but when I do, usually just trace over manually in Autodesk... good to know there is a program made for doing it efficiently. Cheers!