LHR, Is a Demo version of DXF importer an option?

[spalted]

Spalted,

That does clear things up. It's unfortunate LHR couldn't just get an importer that would take artwork and turn it into a duplicate on a project board. This works nothing like importing dingbats from a font file so I am very happy I didn't waste my $200 on the DXF importer.

IMHO, they missed the mark on this one.

Thanks for the info!

I'm glad you found out it wasn't what you were looking for before you bought it.

I think the thing to remember though is; there really is no z information or depth to import from a vector drawing. It's just lines.

[lynnfrwd]

1. I see you can split DXF files into sections and place them onto a virtual designer board. My main use of the carvewright is spanning my engraving/carvings across cabinet doors. Up to know this has caused some erratic machine behavior with the cutting bit moving around a lot just off to the side of a project board. If the bit is large enough and the machine moves the bit deep enough it damages the side of the board ( or at least causes me to have to make manual changes to the board once it is removed from the CW. I am seriously hoping that running a project using the DXF add-on would eliminate this problem. This is a bit of a complicated issue and there is a whole thread on this issue ( curious machine behavior ) is the post title.

This shouldn't happen. Send a copy of your file and explanation of the issue to support@carvewright.com so we can see if the issue is with the project.

2. Can I mix centerline and DXF elements even if they are layered ?

Yes, you can mix centerline text and DXF elements. Tutorial #1 on the CarveWright website does exactly that. You may overlap line's all you want and achieve some "layering" effects by adjusting cut depths on the imported DXF file.

3. From the videos, it sounded like the bit profile ( depth of cut ) is manually entered and not determined by the thickness of a line within a vector image. Is this indeed the case?

There is no thickness to lines. All effects and depths will be set manually in designer.

4. How complicated of an image will the DXF importer handle? I do a lot of family crest engravings and some of them can get pretty detailed with many lines and curves which need to translate accurately.

The DXF will import whatever dxf file you need it too no matter how complicated, and it will do it very accurately.

John: The DXF Importer may or may not be what you thought it was or do what you hoped it would. Customers that understand and use 2d &/or 3d graphics software, plus know how much the software could cost, think we ROCK!

[jgowrie]

Lynn,

Thank you for all the answers. It seems that on all accounts minus the manual setting of bit profile/depth the software would meet my needs. I am not well versed in 2d/3d drawing programs so maybe I have a simplistic view of what I expected such a plug-in to perform. I think that myself and probably several others were hoping this plug-in would eliminate the need to import artwork for engraving, first as a font and then into Designer using Centerline. It takes a fair amount of effort to get that to work and my disappointment is that this requested ability is still not fully addressed.

Again, maybe I'm just hoping for something that is a little too complicated but it works with Centerline text so I just figure it should have been an easy enough task for software engineers to include. Maybe in a future update this feature could be included. I can't download the demo of VECTRIC's V-Carve Pro but from the description it sounds like they have exactly the feature I am looking for but I can't use that software with my Carvewright. Maybe the Carvewright could be opened up to work with other software as an alternative but I presume that would be a big "NO!"

I know that I could manually set all these profiles but with the images I use I'd rather stick toothpicks under my fingernails, lol!

[lawrence]

I just wanted to post a quick "bump" on this post to thank LHR for making the DXF (and STL) importer demo available. I tried it tonight and then immediately bought it... mostly because I need/want it but also because I want to continue to support companies that try to serve both their bottom line AND their customers. I truly appreciate it and just wanted to chime in.

Thanks again for all you are doing to provide us with a great product at a reasonable price

Lawrence

[mtylerfl]

I just wanted to post a quick "bump" on this post to thank LHR for making the DXF (and STL) importer demo available. I tried it tonight and then immediately bought it... mostly because I need/want it but also because I want to continue to support companies that try to serve both their bottom line AND their customers. I truly appreciate it and just wanted to chime in.

Thanks again for all you are doing to provide us with a great product at a reasonable price

Lawrence

Good for you, Lawrence! I completely agree with you...I use the DXF and STL importer all the time and each time I do, I appreciate the CarveWright Team even more for developing such handy tools for us!

It can be difficult to explain to "non-graphic-geeks" all the benefits of those features, so some folks don't have the appreciation for them that a lot of us do.

You're going to have tons of fun with your new software tools!