Hey all,

New guy here, eagerly anticipating the arrival of my PhlatPrinter Mk3. In the meantime, I'm trying to get files ready to cut. I have several airplanes designed in AutoCAD and I'm trying to import them to Sketchup to use Phlatscript to generate G-code. But, this import process isn't going well. The drawing imports and looks fine, but any polylines are split up into tons of tiny segments. I see how to select all these, and either convert the chains into components or groups. But, what do I do after this?? Phlatscript won't accept these the same way it would accept a circle if I drew a new one.

Obviously the philosophy of Sketchup is very different from what I'm used to. It looks like PhlatScript is looking for faces, but I can't figure out quite how to convert imported chains to these faces.

Any tips??

Thanks!

RJ

 

you will either have to redraw those lines or weld them to make one line, circles are easier just to make new ones in SU.
if you want to e-mail me one of your files at jnida63@gmail.com i will work it up so you can see what needs to be done and mail it back to you.

 

Hi RJ,

If you find that you have alot of colinear edges which would be better simplyfied into a single edge, try a plugin called: Repair Broken Lines.
viewtopic.php?f=103&t=95

You don't "group/make components" of chains of edges. If you want to make it into a curve/polyline, use the weld plugin from smustard: http://www.smustard.com/script/Weld
But you don't need do this. You just need faces. Weld will also ask if you want to add a face, but I don't use it for that. I normally only use weld to make a specific set of edges into a curve. Weld gets confused if, for example, you give it a branching shape like the Y shape.

I'm not that familiar with the settings for dxf/dwg. But if you want to do a better import, I would investigate using dwg files instead of dxf. Check out this example, I made: viewtopic.php?f=219&p=26094#p26075

To make faces, you can use phlatscript's phlatten feature. It moves all z coordinates to zero, but will also make any faces. Use from the context menu (select and right click): Phlat Edge/Phlatten Selected Edges Just make sure you don't use this on arcs, circle and curves as they will end up exploded, but I think you shouldn't have any of those from an imported dxf.

The other choice is the Make faces plugin from Smustard. It's a little slower, but preserve any arcs, circles and curves.
http://www.smustard.com/script/MakeFaces

Oh, I got to try out the new set of smilies:
:welcome:

-Kwok

 

Thanks guys! I think I figured out how to make it work. Since, as you said, all I need are faces, I just selected part of the line of each closed section, selected all connected segments, and then used the "Create Face" utility that took me far too long to find. It's a little time consuming but not all that bad.

However, I will experiment with the other suggestions too. Little bit of a learning curve here so please bear with me!

RJ

 

Jnida63,

Maybe you can help?

I am wanting Sketchup Ver 7.1 so I can use the DXF plugin.

The link viewtopic.php?f=96&t=440
is a corrupted archive. Can it be replaced with a working version please?
I'm talking about the ZIP file.

Thanks,
Marty

 

Marty, I just tried the file and it came down to my computer not corrupted.