[SamTaylor]

My company wants me to make DXF files for all of their fabric and wood frame patterns.

Im using the VCarve image tracing right now to see if its an efficient work around for way more expensive alternatives.

The problem Im running into is that all the curves in VCarve seem to be constructed of individual lines. So a big curve is a crazy amount of nodes.

I can only assume that it would be a huge problem for trying to cut them.

Are we wasting our time trying use VCarve to make our DXF's?

[ger21]

Try using the "Fit Curves" tool before saving the .dxf's. The individual lines are coming from the tracing, which can't detect curves.

[SamTaylor]

Try using the "Fit Curves" tool before saving the .dxf's. The individual lines are coming from the tracing, which can't detect curves.

So this is what Im looking at now.
https://i.imgur.com/aHuuVR1.png

I read this solution online but didnt really see any difference when messing with the different settings.
is there something specific I should be doing?

I did a Bezier Curve on the piece and it looked good in Vcarve, but the DXF itself reads like this in Fusion360.
https://i.imgur.com/OG6vrXY.png

[ger21]

Convert with the Circular Arcs setting, and play with the tolerance to reduce the nodes.

[islander261]

Sam

Manual tracing does not require expensive SW like VCarve. Use open source (free) Inkscape. You can save as either .svg or .dxf. Inkscape will by default create complex curves that you can edit and save them as polylines if you save as .dfx. Actually the best is to keep everything as a .svg file but I don't know anything about your down stream requirements.

John

[SamTaylor]

Sam

Manual tracing does not require expensive SW like VCarve. Use open source (free) Inkscape. You can save as either .svg or .dxf. Inkscape will by default create complex curves that you can edit and save them as polylines if you save as .dfx. Actually the best is to keep everything as a .svg file but I don't know anything about your down stream requirements.

John

What are the advantages of SVG vs DXF?

Also I dont see an option to save as DXF from Inkscape, will I have to use a format converter?