Problems opening a Qcad .dxf file in Autocad

[cgraf]

I have problems with 2 of my drawings as they cannot be opened by Autocad (tried version 1006 and 2008). Opening the .dxf in Autocad shows an emty file and an error message "invalid .dxf file" and autocad indicates some problems with ellipses...

Does anybody have a clue ?

Thanks and regards

Christoph

[ttrw]

Hi Christoph.

The problem with Autodesk is that they keep changing the goal posts, so to speak as far as importing DXF/ DWG files are concerned, making importing of ANY file made by any other application other than AutoCAD extremely difficult (fwiw, Inventor files won't open in AutoCAD either and both these apps are also Autodesk owned! ). This is a worldwide known problem for all- so you are not on your own

There was a way of importing DXF/ DXF R12 Q-Cad files to AutoCAD- I'm trying to remember. I may have to get back to you as I do not have AutoCAD here right now- but it does work.

You will however, have to run a few things in AutoCAD to get it to work- one thing however, is that text DOES NOT WORK! So try inputting text afterwards. Failing that, just throw AutoCAD in the bin and just use Q-Cad. You'll save a lot of money!

Tom

[cgraf]

Hi Tom

Thanks a lot for your help.
The problem was finally solved by opening the QCAD file with turbocad, no changes, and saving it without options, then mailed to the cnc milling shop.

I got my 78 milled parts yesterday and it worked perfectly. So the solution is to open and save it using SolidEdge or turbocad. Both of them were tested.
We tried all on autocad, importing, opening etc but no results. For now the issue is solved (although I have to buy turbocad)...

Best regards

Christoph

P.S. Throwing acad to the bin works on my side, but the cnc milling company uses it, so no influence there...

[ttrw]

Hi Christoph!

Great stuff!

Turbocad is a great program- another super bargain. The guy who wrote it is Tim Olson, who also wrote Concepts Unlimited. I've got something called ViaCAD ($99) as well- which is basically TurboCAD with a different name.

Did you know that Olson has new product called Shark FX- which allows for parametric constraints making it more suitable for mechanical CAD? As a Mac user, this is great news as I mainly use Solidworks and am eager to move away from Windows and all its annoying habits.

Q-Cad is an awesome program- Q-Cad is where I always stop at if I need to draw something really quickly

[ttrw]

(although I have to buy turbocad)...

It's just occurred to me, have you tried Solidworks' eDrawings? eDrawings is free and opens up DXF files AND can re-export to DXF (it can also export to STL too!)

[cgraf]

Tom,

good idea, will try it !

Best regards

Christoph

[ttrw]

Hi again Christoph

Just checked- it had something to do withthe 'regen all' command and then writing some blurb in the command line- which I can't remember- it was 3 years back when I had to do that last, so sorry.

Did you know that you can run Q-Cad off a USB stick too? This is such a fantastic feature of Q-Cad imo. I've found this feature invaluable when using Q-Cad at work for eg, where they lock all the PC's down so you can't install anything. Q-Cad just happily runs off the stick instead. Very cool indeed.

[thinker5555]

Hi again Christoph

Just checked- it had something to do withthe 'regen all' command and then writing some blurb in the command line- which I can't remember- it was 3 years back when I had to do that last, so sorry.

Hi Tom,

I thought I'd throw in that I'm interested in this, too, if you can come up with it.

Thanks,
Jeremy

[ttrw]

Hi fellas

Right;

01. Open dxf file in ACAD

02. File Menu/ Drawing Utilities/ Audit

03. Type 'y' (for yes) in the command line and hit return.

04. then type 'regen' and hit return again.


Zoom extents, and that's it!

You will almost certainly have trouble with ACAD printing any QCad text/ Unicode. The way around this is to stop supporting ACAD, throw it in the bin, save yourself a lot of money and encourage absolutely everybody you know to support QCad instead

I hope that helps (and sorry for the delay).

ttrw

[tj]

I have problems with 2 of my drawings as they cannot be opened by Autocad (tried version 1006 and 2008). Opening the .dxf in Autocad shows an emty file and an error message "invalid .dxf file" and autocad indicates some problems with ellipses...

Does anybody have a clue ?

Thanks and regards

Christoph

Here's another solution! Please forgive the late reply.

Try http://www.anydwg.com

I am using this to easily convert Acad Drawings to dxf and back.

Hope this is helpful. Only caveat is that it is windows based.

TJ

[gdmkk]

For text, just change all text in QCad as unicode and not standard.
Then open the dxf in AutoCad.
I tried and it does work!
G