×
INTELLIGENT WORK FORUMS
FOR ENGINEERING PROFESSIONALS

Log In

Come Join Us!

Are you an
Engineering professional?
Join Eng-Tips Forums!
  • Talk With Other Members
  • Be Notified Of Responses
    To Your Posts
  • Keyword Search
  • One-Click Access To Your
    Favorite Forums
  • Automated Signatures
    On Your Posts
  • Best Of All, It's Free!
  • Students Click Here

*Eng-Tips's functionality depends on members receiving e-mail. By joining you are opting in to receive e-mail.

Posting Guidelines

Promoting, selling, recruiting, coursework and thesis posting is forbidden.

Students Click Here

Jobs

DXF exports from SW to ACAD, too many objects!

DXF exports from SW to ACAD, too many objects!

DXF exports from SW to ACAD, too many objects!

(OP)
When I export drawings from Solidworks to a DXF format for my 2D assembly and wiring drawings, some of these files contain 30,000+ objects. Upon further inspection, I have realized that solidworks exports every visible edge as a separate line regardless how small. Also, many edges are coincident and colinear and what I'm looking to do is eliminate the number of objects and merge coincident (and colinear) line segments. Do any of you know of a way to do this in SW (2004) before exporting or after in ACAD (2004) so I can create smaller, more efficient and more functional files? Some of these DXFs come out at 10+MB, which is ridiculous for what I'm turning them into..

Thanks for your replies!

Matt

RE: DXF exports from SW to ACAD, too many objects!

(OP)
As a follow up to my question, I am exporting object lines, hidden lines and tangent lines in separate layers, so I can eliminate these layers as needed.

RE: DXF exports from SW to ACAD, too many objects!

If you can see an edge in SW you can hide it, but if there is another edge directly behind it then you can't hide that second edge. Example If you have a box in a drawing you can hide the edge that you are looking directly at, but the second edge you cannot. So that edge will get exported.

Other then that, this is something that you will probably have to do a the AutoCAD stage. When you export the SW file out, it exports all edges.

If they are in layers then you should look at using "Color mapping" in the options of a save of a SW drawing file to DWG, DXF.

Regards,

Scott Baugh, CSWP
http://www.3dvisiontech.com
http://www.scottjbaugh.com

For all Newbie's - Welcome to the nerd herd!

FAQ731-376

RE: DXF exports from SW to ACAD, too many objects!

(OP)
Maybe I wasn't clear enough. I was mainly referring to joining these edges, not removing them. imagine 10 or so ------------- edges showing up as one. I need to export these coincident, colinear edges as merged or have a way to merge them post export.

Thanks,
Matt

RE: DXF exports from SW to ACAD, too many objects!

  My memory is vague on this, but I think there are LISP routines available for AutoCAD which examine a drawing for redundant lines and remove them.

Joe Dunfee

RE: DXF exports from SW to ACAD, too many objects!

You could also try converting these lines to poly lines in AutoCAD using the PEDIT command.  Type in Pedit then select the objects (lines, arc, etc) you would like to convert to poly lines.  Once converted you can use the join option to join them together.

RE: DXF exports from SW to ACAD, too many objects!

(OP)
I'm interested in the LISP routines, anyone have a reference to them?  Thanks for the PEDIT tip, merging these lines is what I'm looking to do, but it wouldn't be feasible when working with thousands of line segments.

BTW, I have posted this question in the AutoCAD forum as well, I feel as if it applies equally to both software packages as the solution will most likely have to be AutoCAD-based, but the problem is Solidworks-created.

RE: DXF exports from SW to ACAD, too many objects!

I guess I should have mentioned you can window select while in the PEDIT command.  it will only connect lines that touch.  The LISP would probably be a faster way to go.

RE: DXF exports from SW to ACAD, too many objects!

  I just did  a quick search, and found that the Express tools provide this feature to remove duplicate lines.  The express tools were included in 2000, but removed from the 2002 version and only made available to subscribers (they got to make subscription valuable somehow!).  I believe there are other 3rd party utilities that do this as well.

Joe Dunfee

Red Flag This Post

Please let us know here why this post is inappropriate. Reasons such as off-topic, duplicates, flames, illegal, vulgar, or students posting their homework.

Red Flag Submitted

Thank you for helping keep Eng-Tips Forums free from inappropriate posts.
The Eng-Tips staff will check this out and take appropriate action.

Reply To This Thread

Posting in the Eng-Tips forums is a member-only feature.

Click Here to join Eng-Tips and talk with other members!


Resources