DXF import in Allegro (argh!)

fxffxf,

Thanks for your comments! I am working with packages in the dra.'s so check on that! Seems the problems are general - disregarding if I'm working in .dra or .brd files. I'd love to upgrade to a new version - especially to get it back into support. But unfortunately this is way out of my budget. Sad to waste so much time on stupid problems - but when liquidity is hurting time is actually not quite money :-O

Mike,

I'm afraid I have to confirm that the spaces ARE equal to problems! After removing them the different board files at least show similar behaviour. This is a great step forward, probably something I should have expected (do remember problems like that, now that I see it again!).  Thanks a lot for the hint! :-D

I'm back to looking at the dxfs (that's great!). Any recommendations for the dxf versions to use, commands to be avoided (I notice the dxfs are readable text) or freeware (or cheap) programs to clean them up? (I'm not aware of the AutoDesk pricing - but I think it's probably not something I'd like to pay for "a utility for Allegro" ;-)

Cheers, Anders

Update: I've messed around with three freeware CAD programs - they all can import the original dxfs. But they don't make any significant difference for Allegro. Haven't compared files - but commonly it seems they generate splines (that Allegro does not support).

Right now I'm having some succes with exporting dxfs from Corel Draw (!) in Autocad R2.5 format. Seems a requirement to keep all objects unfilled. Importing to board_geometry/silkscreen_top everything ends up in shapes. That's basically OK, except right now I can't figure out how to change a shape to a void?! Think of an "O" as an outer and an inner contour: The inner one should be a shape void, right? But this is not an option with the shape/change command (that returns "W- (SPMHGE-482): Change shape type not allowed for non etch shapes." anyways). Puzzels me completely right now - and I can see it's also on my old "unsolved stuff" list. Perhaps I'm on the wrong path??? Not that importing to an etch layer (where everything gets to be clines) makes it any better ;-)

Sorry about the logomaker - your first post mentioned logos so I assumed you needed a company logo and not board outlines etc. When you import dxf you could try bringing in everything to a dummy layer (like Board geometry assembly notes / details) then to get a shape to be a voided shape try Shape - Compose Shape, select the layer etc in the options then window the inner contour, this creates a filled shape, then window select everything (inner and outer contour and you should get a voided 'o' shape. (Well this works in 16.6....)

My standard process was to output the DXF file at the lowest possible version (Version 12.0) to improve my chances of getting any DXF file to import.  Not saying that higher versions won't import but going down to a lower version strips out any of the newer features in AutoCAD that I really don't care about anyway and I have seen Allegro complain about during import.

I would also open up the DXF file in AutoCAD or some viewer and explode grouped elements and Blocks to their individual elements.  Again I really didn't care most of the time about any grouping but just wanted to raw data to come in and I can take it from there from inside of Allegro  I have used AutoCAD to flatten out the DXF files most of the time but another tool that has been useful was Cadopia (http://www.cadopia.com/) which gave me the ability to load DXF and DWG files to explode or downrev the DXF file to a lower version.  I want to say that it was part of the Cadence standard install some time ago but I just can't remember which version.

Here is a previous thread on DXF translation.  /forums/p/19502/1278044.aspx#1278044

Good luck,
Mike Catrambone

Steve,

No worries: I'm currently messing around with both logos and mechanics. But I generally dislike converting vectors to bitmaps when the final product is also vectors. ;-) Anyway, the main problem is that I think the application concept is new to 16.5 or 16.6 - so the app installs on windows but does not show up in my 16.2.

As for the "compose shape" it worked like a charm. Still have trouble understanding the procedure - but I think this is the first time I've experienced Allegro seeming to know what I wanted to do! :-D

Thanks for the support - I'd never 'gotten through this without the hints from you and Mike!

Cheers,

 Anders