Gazzalene Posted February 1, 2013 Share Posted February 1, 2013 By complete chance i noticed a local archetectral supply shop does laser cutting.After a quick chat i was told that to do the cutting they need a cutting file,DXF? They do no file work at all. I thought it must be so easy to get my basic 2D wing rib to a file.Boy was i wrong.after spending many hours looking at the web for how-to`s or tutorials i have found none for the very basic stuff and novice.all seem aimed at art design stuff.Can any one give me any pointers haow to get going.I draw my parts full size on paper so can scan to PC. I need help from there thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Olly P Posted February 1, 2013 Share Posted February 1, 2013 Hi Gazzalene, DXF is a Drawing eXchange File. These are one of the common file types used in CAD/CAM. There are 2 ways you could get the drawings to this (well there are more but I can see 2 key ones) 1) Download a free CAD package from the Web and draw them electronically then save the file as a PDF 2) Scan the drawings in and use a CAD import tool to get them onto CAD programe then save off as a DXF. I don't know what free software is outthere to do this as I borrow a CAD laptop from work and use Solidworks to do CAD when I need to - not often these days TBH. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ben B Posted February 1, 2013 Share Posted February 1, 2013 The quickest and simplest way is to use a program to trace a scan of the image into DXF format. There's an example of how to do this (using free sofrware) here. **LINK** Then just scale the resulting dxf file and job's a good'un. Otherwise if it is a well known airfoil section it should be possible to find that in vector form and then edit that in a CAD program. CAD programs seem overwhelming when you first use them but they're pretty easy after a bit of practice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Koen Smits Posted February 1, 2013 Share Posted February 1, 2013 Hi Gazzalene, To get your paper drawing into a cad programm, make a scan from your drawing or part of the drawing, save these scans as jpeg files, With a programm called WINTOPO it is possible to trace the scanfile and save them as dxf file. Import this dxf file into a CAD programm to edit and redraw all the short lines to longer lines and circles and arcs build up from shortlines into real circles and arcs. A free 2D cad programm is Drafsight. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erfolg Posted February 1, 2013 Share Posted February 1, 2013 Would it not be possible to use Profi? to generate DXF files? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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