Hello everyone. I often process laser cutting dxf files to make a 3D view of it. So you have to have a surface and extrude it. But when you import a dxf (or .ai) file the lines are not continuous. To have a surface inside a perimeter you have to do two actions, first select it entirely and have the edges welded, then with the pencil tool you have to iron one side. Well, I don’t know why, but that’s the way I found. And if we don’t have a straight line in the figure, it’s done.
When you have a file with tens of figures it’s a very long and painful process.
So if someone could explain to me why and especially how to make it simpler, I would be infinitely grateful.
well actually, no need to weld.
Sketchup loves faces. whenever you draw anything, it’ll try to make faces. a dxf is a line file, no faces, but as you mention, simply redrawing one line will generate all the possible associated faces.
this is the way.
no. Curves are simplified in a succession of small lines in sketchup. you could draw a perfect circle in autocad, it’ll appear as a high count polygon. therefore you can retrace one of the tiny lines. zoom in on the curve and see, lines.
select, all your lines, activate face creator, it’ll make faces wherever it can. On occasion I’ve had a few files where holes remained, mostly because of drawing issues (like a line missing), but hey, it’s still quicker.
KBS face tool is another free plugin that can generate faces on a closed line loop, like eneroth’s plugin you can select everything and it’ll create faces wherever it’s possible. KBS plugin also has two more tools one to find the center of anything, groups, lines and surfaces, and another tool to find the center of arcs. I thought I didn’t need those tools until I had them, now they’re fundamental part of my workflow.
