Hi Les,
Dev. version 6.1.62
Various “arty” type DXF files will not import into Dev. version, but will import without problem into Standard version.
First “Loading Drawing / Reading File” takes a long time, then “Removing Duplicate Vectors” just locks up and nothing else happens. I have to force close the program.
Here’s one of the various files that give this problem:
basketball-and-soccer-ball-on-fire-vector.dxf (119 KB)
Keith
The problem is overlapping line detection. SheetCam has to compare every line in the drawing with every other line to see they overlap. When you have thousands of lines this becomes very time consuming. If you leave it long enough the drawing will eventually load. Go to Options->application options->drawing import and turn off ‘Remove duplicate lines’. This will really speed up loading.
I don’t think that’s the issue Les.
In the Standard version, “Remove Duplicate Lines” is on, yet a big complicated arty file (DXF import) loads in 3 seconds.
In the Development version I turn off “Remove Duplicate Lines” and yet when I try to import the exact same file, I can wait minutes and the computer pretty much becomes unusable. Something is very different in the Development version.
The relatively simple file I gave you did manage to load in the Development version when I turned off “Remove Duplicate Lines”, but it did take about 12 seconds. When I load that simple file in Sheetcam Standard (“Remove Duplicate Lines” enabled) the import is instant.
That DXF file is only 118 Kbytes in size so it’s not a large file at all. And the fact that is loads instantly into Standard version (“Remove Duplicate Lines” enabled), yet takes about 12 seconds in Development version (with “Remove Duplicate Lines” disabled) indicates something is wrong in the Development version.
I enabled “Remove Duplicate Lines” in the Development version again and tried to import the simple file and waited several minutes but it would not finish. Remember it loaded instantly into the Standard version with the same setting.
Keith
Could you check your drawing import options, Options->application options->drawing import. Are they the same on both versions? Your drawings contain a lot of spline curves. As G-code cannot handle splines they are broken into lots of short line segments. Your drawing import options have a big effect on the number of lines generated.
Settings are identical Les.
I uninstalled v6.1.62 completely, settings and everything, even my license file.
Then installed v6.1.53 and my big complicated arty file imported without issues (“Remove Duplicate Lines” enabled). Not as fast as the Standard version mind you, but just a few seconds longer.
The next available install version I had was v6.1.59 and I get the same issues as v6.1.62 so it seems between v6.1.53 and v6.1.59 something has changed as far as importing goes.
If you could give me a link where I can download previous installs, I could check to see exactly which version the problem appears in.
Keith.
Hi Les,
do you have a link you could give me ?
Keith
Sorry for the delay in replying. I was working away yesterday.
There aren’t any Windows releases between 6.1.53 and 6.1.59. Those were Linux releases.
I have a suspicion I may know what is going on. I will run some tests and see what I can find.
Found it. The next version will import splines much faster and with greater accuracy. It should be faster then the stable version. Remove duplicate lines is now automatically disabled for complex shapes that would take a long time to check.
I use “overkill” in autocad to remove duplicate lines, it normally clears most of my copy and paste errors
Thanks Les,
I use Coreldraw a lot and I’ve heard its DXF export is not the best.
I even tried to work around it by export/save as an AI file, then opening in Adobe Illustrator CS2, then exporting as DXF from there.
Unfortunately that didn’t seem to help.
So then I thought I’d buy the latest DXFTOOL for Coreldraw. It exports Coreldraw files as arcs and lines, not splines. However, that’s only available up to Coreldraw X6 and I now have version 2019.
Keith
You could always export from CorelDraw as an .svg, Sheetcam likes .svg files.
The spline issue also affects SVG files 
Anyway, it should be sorted in the latest release.