Hello, I’ve read lots of forums trying to find my issue on DXF exports for laser cutting. My vendor is saying there are too many segments (over 5000) when there should just be a couple hundred. I have exported as a 3D DXF with only Edges selected… Anything else I can do to clean this model up and reduce segments?
Heat Shield Pattern File.skp (595.5 KB)
DaveR you’re a legend in these parts. I’ll export and send to my vendor and update when they respond.
Hopefully that works for them. I have no idea what they actually need. Fingers crossed.
I notice you were on parallel projection, which is often used to get a scale export of DXF. There is a workflow where you can stay in perspective, any view, and yet get a smooth DXF export of the right size.
Watch all of this old video that Aaron made:
One thing about the welding, the built in weld feature doesn’t mind if faces are selected, which means to do what Dave did you can Select All, right-click Weld Edges.
Edit: I re-read what you said, and you are already doing most of what Aaron suggests. The camera can stay in Perspective.
Possibly what would reduce the amount of segments would be to rebuild all the curves as a series of circular arcs. Welded curves will be exported to DXF as polylines with straight segments and not as magically reverse-engineered spline curves.
Here have a look at this file. I have reduced the segment count, but it has lost a small amount of detail.
Heat Shield Pattern File Box.skp (697.9 KB)
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Another option you may want to look at is exporting as .svg
This is what I see when I export your original using Eneroth’s SVG exporter and import into lightburn, Laser software.
And a simple test, cuts with no issues.
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