Inserting Illustrator/vector artwork into icd

[Mike Allen]

Does anyone else need to import Illustrator (or other vector) artwork into IronCAD 2D drawings? I've never been able to figure out how to go directly from Illustrator to IronCAD, so we have been using Freehand (version 9, back when Macromedia owned it.) We would create a new Freehand OLE object in a drawing, which would open up a Freehand window, allow us to copy the Illustrator art into the Freehand window & "Exit & return to ..." from the Freehand menu. Works great - gives us access to all sorts of artwork that can then be scaled in IronCAD without any pixelization. Plus, we could then open the file from IronCAD for editing, based on the needs of our drawing. Then we could drag the art into a catalog for future uses.

 

Now we're updating our computers & Freehand won't load on the new systems. Adobe bought Freehand a few years back & doesn't intend to update it (i.e. they want it to die.) So now we find ourselves with IronCAD 2D catalogs full of Freehand illustrations, which we can drag onto a drawing sheet, but won't be able to edit - and no way to get new artwork, save making jpegs (which is going to be another issue, when we can't get Microsoft Photo Editor to work with newer operating systems.)

 

Any ideas?

[tlehnhaeuser]

Hi Mike

What I do is save the Illustrator files as DWGs and then bring them into ICD. then I make groups of what I need from the DWG geometry.

Obviously theres no OLE capabilities with this approach.

Tom

 

[Mike Allen]

Well, I can get the DWG to open in CAXA & it looks as though it might preserve fills, etc. How exactly do you manage to get the art onto an icd sheet? I must be missing something.

[cborer]

As I remember you can open .ai files in Rhino, which is perfect for dxf creation.

I think to remember Adobe dxf where for nothing....but some years ago...

 

PS Rhino is unbelievable! If I need a new tool, with some luck I got it in a week!

[Cary OConnor]

Mike - Can you post your .ai file so that we can test Tom's process here?

 

Cary

[Mike Allen]

Cary - I just sent you an e-mail.

[tlehnhaeuser]

Well I take it back, my approach doesn;t work anymore.

 

[sbuchanan]

Did we get somewhere with the Mike and Cary? This is a global (Skyline) issue and a streamlined process would be amazing for how I use the tools.

[jolizon590016]

I tried converting jpg to bmp, it works on an icd sheet but doesn't offer the smoothness of png or jpg.

 

regards

[tlehnhaeuser]

May be worthy of testing. I use Inkscape.org alot instead of Illustrator. Its free open-source, will read all sorts of Vector file types and export to DXF which I used in IC.

 

Heres a video that may help shed light

 

tom

[jolizon590016]

I tried that last night, it caused errors with pyhton.exe. I tried my Illustrator 9.0 and it changes the system to basic compatibility mode for IC, didn't work either. Every time I use Illustrator , it goes like this with Windows 7. It doesn't like the aero peek features of the desktop. However Illustrator works as a standalone app, can't work with any. I haven't tried setting all in 32 bit compatibility mode yet.

 

Regards,

 

Joseph

[tcooksey]

Does anyone else need to import Illustrator (or other vector) artwork into IronCAD 2D drawings? I've never been able to figure out how to go directly from Illustrator to IronCAD, so we have been using Freehand (version 9, back when Macromedia owned it.) We would create a new Freehand OLE object in a drawing, which would open up a Freehand window, allow us to copy the Illustrator art into the Freehand window & "Exit & return to ..." from the Freehand menu. Works great - gives us access to all sorts of artwork that can then be scaled in IronCAD without any pixelization. Plus, we could then open the file from IronCAD for editing, based on the needs of our drawing. Then we could drag the art into a catalog for future uses.

 

Now we're updating our computers & Freehand won't load on the new systems. Adobe bought Freehand a few years back & doesn't intend to update it (i.e. they want it to die.) So now we find ourselves with IronCAD 2D catalogs full of Freehand illustrations, which we can drag onto a drawing sheet, but won't be able to edit - and no way to get new artwork, save making jpegs (which is going to be another issue, when we can't get Microsoft Photo Editor to work with newer operating systems.)

 

Mike,

 

Here is the technique I use to do that:

 

 

Convert the vector .ai to dwg format.

Start a new ics file.

CREATE>2D SHAPE

Orient this drawing plane at 0,0,0 so that you are looking down on the plane from a top view ( this is critical )

Edit this 2D shape

Right click on the drawing grid

Select Import and select your dwg file

When the line work imports in, select all of it and copy

 

Create an Iron Cad drawing

Then hit paste

The line work should appear as an object that you can move to the location you want.

Note if it is really complex, it might be very sluggish to move.

 

Note in the ICD drawing, you can create a new drawing catalog and drop this logo in there for future use.

 

 

We typically have a need to covert Illustrator art to 3D parts in Iron Cad.

We typically import the .ai file into Rhino and process it there.

Usually .ai vector art is pretty sloppy and spiney when it comes to using it in Iron Cad.

 

You usually need to eliminate duplicates and extra lines created from outlined lines that Illustrator often creates.

We usually convert the line work to arcs ( Rhino function ) which converts splines to arcs and straight lines.

Do a test solid extrusion of you outline to make sure the curve does not self intersect.

Explode the curves before exporting as dwg as the Rhino exporter will export poly-curves as splines, and these typically are not editable in Iron Cad.

 

Troy

 

 

 

 

 

Any ideas?

36892[/snapback]

 

[Mike Allen]

Thanks Troy. I tried this & see it would work for simple line art. Unfortunately, much of the Illustrator art that we need to import involves fills. It looks to me as though fills are ignored during the import to an IronCAD sketch, so I'm left with only the outlines.

 

It's a bit ironic that much of our Illustrator artwork began life as an IronCAD drawing. We create a 2D view of a 3D model, & export as a DWG. Then we import into Illustrator, add fills, crop as necessary & add text. Ideally, we'd like to bring that artwork back into IronCAD to be used in other drawings, while retaining editability.

 

Alternatively, we would like to be able to take our original 2D drawing view, add annotations, etc. & drag it into a catalog as 2D vector art. The line drawing of the 3D model wouldn't necessarily have to be editable, but it would be essential that we could drag the view out of a catalog & change the annotations or edit view curves.