Hello all,
Long time user, first time poster.
I know this is an old issue and the difference between how SU treats curves as polygons compared to CAD which I also use.
I am always working between AutoCAD which is my industry standard for drawing and SU for visualisations and modelling. Importing CAD files from myself and others to build from is easy until you get to arcs.
Is there really no way in this day and age that we can change the arc segment value for an import?. A dozen segments is only suitable for the tiniest of items, 12 segments makes a mockery of a lot of the CAD drawings I am using and constantly needs to be redrawn in order to have anything useful to work from.
This seems to be from a different era of computing, I know SU likes to keep things simple but this is basic, are there any work arounds or extensions which can help here other than redrawing the CAD arcs in smaller segments before import?
Why can’t we change how SU imports arcs?, or even draws them as a default for that matter?..surely this should be a user setting based on the project and scale you are working at.
All advice (other than redrawing it) warmly received!.
I have no idea where the DWG importer gets the number of edges it uses for importing arcs and circles. I just tried, and my arcs got 38 segments and circles 96. Not 12. It might depend on size, as SketchUp avoids creating too small geometry. Do you know that you can change the segmentation by selecting the arcs and editing the value in Entity Info?
Thanks Anssi,
Yes even if I scale the drawing up it does the same.
I know that you can change the number of segments in the curve but it’s too late at that point after the import …the damage is done and I don’t want to have to rework every line. It’s made a flowing 2D 16 metre curve made of half a dozen tangental radii into 10 segments! I can get it better with work and fix it but it feels it should be easier than this!
Curves just freak it out sometimes, maybe it’s something in the drawing I’ve been sent …I just wish there was some better import options, a bit like Skimp where you can set the complexity of a 3d import.
Maybe one day!
What do you mean? Are you importing polylines with arc segments or spline curves instead of arcs? Those come in as line segments but arc Autocad entities come in as arcs that can be easily edited just as arcs drawn in SketchUp can.
Nope, the are separate arcs not linked into a polyline.
I don’t really use splines a lot as they always use to cause havoc at the CNC shop.
I don’t know if this upload function works but here is before and after…
Very odd…
Thanks for you help Anssi
You try this extension to increase the number of segments of a arcs, splines…
AMAZING!
It has actually imported the 2d DXF and kept them all curves as actual radii…this is brilliant. Well worth the $12 to me, thank you.
I would like to make a try with your DWG or DXF. Can you post it?
new frame.dwg (43.5 KB)
Be my guest!
This is the troublesome one…can’t figure it out, especially as other things import much better like these details( you can see the simpler but unusably segmented frame behind)
The S4U extension sorted it out instantly, very strange.