Translating my illustrator drawings to CAD

[huckfisher]

I use illustrator to design sculptural components. I then export them in a DXF or DWG format to send to a laser cutting outfit that uses CAD to operate their machine. The problem is: what looks like a relatively simple vector drawing on my machine turns into a huge monster "poly line" when opened in their program. It costs me money and time when they have to retranslate it. What's going on?

 

[fizzak]

Describe your "components" Are we talking simple stroked lines? lines with fills? Gradients?

Just a shot in the dark but perhaps instead of saving as a CAD format let the CAD import your AI or EPS files and see if it converts better than Illustrator can.

 

[huckfisher]

I'm doing simple closed line drawings of shapes without fill or gradient.

 

[lucaso]

the problem is that DXF only uses polylines to mimic curvature. If you zoom into it, you'll see it's made up of straight connected lines. There's no such thing as "Beziers" in DXF. If your cutter can read DWG directly, use that, but if the DWG is only intermediate to DXF, the problem stays. Try to find out if the cutter can use other languages, Gerber uses it's own language for instance. Possibly PostScript(EPS) could solve the problem, the trick is to find out the native language of the cutter. Right Hemisphere has Deep Exploration, which has a vast ammount of exportfilters, that could save you.