import into fusion360

[ArtF]

Dan:

  I suspect the end point is their software really wants beziers for long contours.
I belive its all about architecture. One of the reasons I keep saying I don't want
to write a cad program is architecture. A drawing program's underlying architecture is
something almost locked in from start of development, which is fine if you know
exactly where your going, if not, you get into a situation I fond myself in a few years
after I start anything, I often dont know the end destination so I code in directions
that lead me into odd places. Had I KNOWN for example, that flourishes and drawing
would begin to play a fundamental part in Gearotic, my internal databases would be better
suited to drawing, unfortunately, since I deal in Gears primarily, my databases
are more setup for chains of points, not arcs and lines.

  Things like this are good and bad at once.  Chains of data points are hard to query
as to things like adding lines and arcs to drawings, but very easy to do other operations
such as extruding and manipulating data. Fusion, probably requires drawing entities to be
nodes that have a lot of information in them, so each line has an entry in the database,
and since the dxf's from gearotic are outputting poly lines, it likely breaks them into
individual lines. That would get heavy fast.

  The lesson here is that poly-line entities are probably getting out of favor at autodesk,
with a preference for bezier curves. This makes sense to me as I suspect they use
3d beziers to effect solids for algorithmic reasons. Clever mathematicians can do algorithms
on beziers to join them in space and manipulate them in fantastic ways for 3d work
and meshing where lines and arcs are more difficult to work with for 3d op's.
 
  I have pondered all of this for several months in the background since Ive heard
of the trouble. My conclusion is that I will have to effect a bezier output in the future.
I'm not there yet though. Gearotic doesn't like entities much like lines ,arcs etc.
  It prefers to think only of points in series. While Ive added arcs and such for next
release, they , in the end, will devolve to chains of points internally as you work with them,
trimming them and such.

  Were I to do a Gearotic from scratch, my database would look quite different.

All that having been said, chains allow for special ways to process internally that
give me some power entities don't have. The next version has French curves for example,
a tool that allows one to use a selectable ( and even user drawable )french curve cursor
to trim an object, something unusual because its very hard under normal cad databases. 

  So Ive decided most things in Gearotics drawings will devolve internally from lines
and arcs to a single polychain when a user interacts with them. At some point I will
add a tool to reconvert them to lines and arcs if one wishes, OR, to save them as
beziers, which would likely make Fusion very happy, as it would then only have 1
entity as a chain, which is how gearotic holds them.

  So I think Fusion wants not a contour, but a bezier, which is odd
as you'd think they'd just convert from one to the other..but it doesn't look like
it to me.  So instead of having one bezier entitity with perhaps a hundred control
points, they get thousands of individual lines, each requiring their own entry
in their database.

  So at some point I will add a bezier output, and a proper bezier class,
as that would allow me to attempt a Nurbs command in Gcode for a smoother
way of doing massive small point moves in GCode. Thats likely a summer
project though as its very complex to do Nurbs in a trajectory planner
respecting jerk and speed limits. Doable though I think..maybe.. :)

  So Ill keep in mind this issue, and will issue tweaks as I can to help,
with the aim of adding proper b curve outputs that I "think" would solve
the issue permanently.

Thx
Art

[DanL]

Do it when you have time Art, we are hammering them over .dxf now a lot of the guys need proper .dxf not .dwg for laser's, water jets and plasma.

I think they are trying to move to there standard and it's not working most of the contract deisginers need .dxf for there customers.

once I remember to do the conversion vid it will be fine it takes 10 mins first time, then after that a person will get faster at doing it, one of the other fusion user's use's gearotic, it was him tallying A fusion staff member off (young guy just started) that gave me the idea what to use to do the conversion so it keeps the gear to speck.

the first 5mins is deleting chunks of the gears.

anyhow have fun in the snow

[ArtF]

Dan:

  Would it help to simply reduce the point count? I could experiment with a settable resolution like the old days.. on the output, something to limit the distance between points.. though gears are so curvy it can lower the resolution..

Art

[DanL]

I would not bother Art it would make the Gears ruff.

.dxf from Vcarve pro are fine, running the gearotic .dxf through vcarve pro does not fix them. it may work with a gearotic .crv that something I should try.
can I have one in .crv and .svg just so I can test them.

the dxf from rhino are fine in fusion, I just got sent a gear from rhino to test.

[ArtF]

Hi Dan:

The only way Id have to make a crv is to do the same as you, load  gearotic dxf into vcarve and export.
I suspect the issue a hires polylines. Ill do some research to see if I can change that any..  Do you know if a florish loads into Fusion.. does it have the same issue as a gear?

Art

[DanL]

The forum is working again.

I tried a clock face and a flourish they all have to many point for fusion to handle. after some more digging if the .dxf is made up of lot of little lines what fusion does it has a point, line point, point, line, point, point so on.

if I highlight the dxf you can see the points.

if the arc's are one continuous arc fusion is fine, if the ach is made up of a lot of sort lines that is what kills it.

the 3 images are from bad to good bad is from gearotic, ok is from rhino and good is the file I re did to work in fusion

[ArtF]

Yes, very much sounds to me like a database engine designed to hold beziers and arcs, but not well designed
for multiple line storage.. very strange way to go as millions of dxf's with short lines are common out there..

  I will be investigating a way to swap a chain to arcs and beziers eventually but I havent as yet added such curves
so that may take awhile. Internally, I will be converting all entities to short line segment contours as it allows me
more easily to do intersections, offsets, simulations..etc.. The speed in fact should me much higher with objects being single
contours. So in the end Ill have to write a reverse engineering algorithm to get back lines and arcs. A persons original drawing
is unlikely to be seen again once Auggie starts to work with or simulate using it, in terms of its original lines/arcs anyway.

  I will attempt a reverse engineering algorithm once I start the simulation code. A 2d simulator is now on my planning board
for working with gravity and kinematics of contour objects. 

Art

[DanL]

The impression I got yesterday from one of the dev guys is they don't wont .dxfs in fusion at all, and don't want to fix it what is stupid most of there programs still use .dxfs.
the same problem exists for .stl and obj.

they wont fusion to move to the .f3d and f3dz for fusion and import export of solid dead files what they have a converter for

these ones
IGES files (*.iges, *.igs)
SAT (*.sat)
SMT files (*.smt)
STEP files (*.step, *.stp)

these file above are the ones they wont and are doing translations for in the future you will be able to import export between programs that use the above file type and it will translate out to say solidworks and the file will be just like a solidworks file but then you can export the same file back out of solidworks and into fusion and it will be translated back to a fusion file, inventor files will be even easier to use.
so it all the big boy programs they are after trying to corner the market, you can get one of the ADSK production packages for $3500 us a year.

it would not surprise me if they knock on your door soon. so don't get realy sick they might pounce

in fusion you can use these types as well

Alias files (*.wire)
AutoCAD DWG files(*.dwg)
Autodesk Fusion 360 files (*.f3d, *.f3z)
Autodesk Fusion 360 Drawing files (*.f2d)
Autodesk Fusion 360 Toolpath files (*.cam360)
Autodesk Inventor files (*.iam, *.ipt)
Catia V5 files (*.CATProduct, *.CATPart)
DXF files (*.dxf)
FBX files (*.fbx)
IGES files (*.iges, *.ige, *.igs)
NX files (*.prt)
OBJ files (*.obj)
Parasolid Binary files (*.x_b)
Parasolid Text files (*.x_t)
Pro/ENGINEER and Crea Parametric files (*.asm, *.prt)
Pro/ENGINEER Granite files (*.g)
Pro/ENGINEER Neutral files (*.neu)
Rhino files (*.3dm)
SAT/SMT files (*.sab, *.sat, *.smb, *.smt)
SolidWorks files (*.prt, *.asm, *.sldprt, *.sldasm)
STEP files (*.ste, *.step, *.stp)
STL files (*.stl)
SketchUp files (*.sku)

It's up to you what you do I don't mind working out the workarounds, it's good practise for me and it helps you, what is important to me

[ArtF]

>IGES files (*.iges, *.igs)
SAT (*.sat)
SMT files (*.smt)
STEP files (*.step, *.stp)

  Yes, I suspect they all want that now. The complexity of that is enourmous though.. Im still investigating. :)

Art

[DanL]

The vid of the fix is here Art if you watch it you will see when I do the first delete how much fusion bogs down, I crashed twice doing the vid prep on the first delete.

https://youtu.be/5cl5no4hjyg

[ArtF]

Just watched it dan..yes, looks like their bogging down on line segments.. which is really quite odd when you think about it.. I mean, a single gear isnt that many points.. But thx, It leaves me with some things to think about in terms of how to make it better.

Art