coreldraw into sketchup via dxf

[Glen Monaghan]

I have a coreldraw file that I want to import into sketchup, so I export as dxf from CD and import into SU. The first picture shows an example shape in CD, consisting of 8 straight lines in a closed path as can be seen from the selected nodes. The second picture is what shows up in SU, where I counted 32 segments (each side is actually at least 3 segments, and the corners have been sort of beveled with extra angled segments). Just to check the dxf file, I opened it it Adobe Illustrator and, as shown in the 3rd picture, the file seems to be fine.

Any ideas why does it look so bad in SU (v8) and how can I fix this? Also, is there some trick getting it to import with the same dimensions it was created with?

-Glen

[Glen Monaghan]

Well, guess I'll talk to myself ;^)

Since AI opened the files okay, I tried saving them back out from AI as dxf and dwg, then importing those into SU. Many more of the shapes came through correctly that way, although some still showed the distortion of extra lines and angled corners.

I've also tried breaking the curves apart into individual lines in CD, exporting as dxf, and importing into SU, and that seems to eliminate the problem. However, it would be a nightmare to manually do that for all the shapes in CD, plus they have to be reconnected to make faces properly in SU. Possibly there are macros out there that could automate this process, but that shouldn't be necessary. Guess I need to go engage the SU community...

-Glen

[Rich Harman]

When you export the DXF from Corel Draw which export version are you choosing?

Try an earlier version such as R13 and see if that makes a difference.

[Glen Monaghan]

I'm using X6 which, IIRC, SU didn't like so I already tried export settings R10, R9 and 2008 with same results. From AI, I've been using 2006, which has worked better but not perfectly. Going into SU8.

Also, I'm choosing inches for output with 1:1 scaling but it always comes in 12x larger... hmmm...

-Glen

[Joe De Medeiros]

I just tried it with X5 and SU 7.1 and it comes in perfect, my guess would be X6 is doing something weird since you are seeing the same thing in AI as well. Also Corel has always kind of sucked when it cames to DXF/DWG output it always adds too many nodes, and when imported into autocad they come in as zero radius splines instead of plines.

[Glen Monaghan]

I spent a couple more hours experimenting this afternoon and discovered almost by accident that a couple of shapes had issues. One shape had double nodes basically one on top of the other, and two other shapes had open line segments (as opposed to closed curves) nested inside. When I deleted one of each of the double nodes in the one shape, and deleted the open segments (which were supposed to be etched rather than cut like everything else) from the others, things worked much better. Still had problems with direct export from CD and direct import into SU, but worked fine when exported from AI and imported to SU with either the builtin function or a 3rd party plugin.

No idea why those issues with those three shapes should affect several other shapes (such as the one in my original post) but there you go... Onward!

-Glen

[Richard DiMaggio]

Exporting from Corel as DXF, depending on what version of AutoCAD you are using, will put shapes out as Splines and will exhibit the rounding of corners etc. Using an earlier version of AutoCAD will export the same geometry as Polylines. That's what you want. I think R11 does Polylines.

[Glen Monaghan]

IIRC, I was using R9. I'll try R11!

-Glen