Illustrater File Conversion

[MRJ]

We are trying to convert an illustrator file to Mastercam V8. We have tried to save it as a .DXF file but when converted into Mastercam nothing is there. We have Ras2Vec also, but for the size we need to engrave it needs way to much clean up to make the lines not look like Flintstones writing. Any help would be much appreciated.

Mike Judd

Summit Machine, Inc.

[Charles Davis]

dxf should work. after reading into mcam, select screen, statistics to see if there is anything there in the graphics background color.

 

also, try dwg or eps (which is a vector file too).

[MRJ]

I just tried that and it's still not there. We always have had problems with .dxf files. If my customer opens it into Solidworks it is there, but when we try in MC it's not. I get three lines that are there but not the text or logo.

[kccadcam]

Mike,

Email me a file if possible and I'll see what I can do.

[Zero]

Rhino will open ai files. Try getting the trial version of the latest rhino from www.rhino3d.com. Try it out and see if this is more what your looking for.

[Keith Graydon]

quote:

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If my customer opens it into Solidworks it is there

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Your customer could just export the file out of Solidworks back to you. even as an IGES.

 

my .02

 

KLG

[Will Slota]

If your talking about Adobe Illustrator files then you were on the right track with Rast2Vec.

 

Go Files,Convert, Next Menu, then under rast2vec is eps. Pick EPS and it will convert *.ai files

[Andris Skulte]

One thing to remember is that DXF doesn't support splines. If the vectors in Illustrator are all splines, the DXF export won't contain anything, other than an empty layer. With Illustrator 10, I'd export a dwg file which does contain splines, and either open that directly in Mastercam, or use AutoCAD, and save-as DXF an intermediate step, and then convert that in Mastercam. I hope this helps!

 

Andris

[MRJ]

That solves one problem, it is all splines. Our version does not have eps file conversion that we are aware of. We are using MC version 8 and in December purchased the Ras2Vec add in. It only runs as a c-hook I believe, not totally sure. We have to press alt-C to access it.

[kccadcam]

If you go into ras2vec isn't there an EPS option?

That is Adobe Illustrator .AI converter

[MRJ]

The files it supports are:

.bmp, .gif, .jpg-.jpeg, .pcd, .pcx, .tif-.tiff

 

That's all it lists when we open up ras2vec using alt-c.

[Will Slota]

In version 8 look for the c-hook eps.dll

[MRJ]

Ok we got it, its under the c-hook of engrave. In there it has a eps converter. Thanks for all the help.