{"id":105,"date":"2008-12-15T22:33:25","date_gmt":"2008-12-15T11:33:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madox.net\/blog\/?p=105"},"modified":"2008-12-15T22:38:56","modified_gmt":"2008-12-15T11:38:56","slug":"a-better-way-to-export-svg-files-from-alibre-xpress-for-ponoko","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madox.net\/blog\/2008\/12\/15\/a-better-way-to-export-svg-files-from-alibre-xpress-for-ponoko\/","title":{"rendered":"A better way to export SVG files from Alibre Xpress (for Ponoko!)"},"content":{"rendered":"

I wrote in here<\/a> of an extremely convoluted way of exporting Alibre Design files into SVG for laser cutting with Ponoko.\u00a0 There were a couple of problems…and of course after some googling there was a better way!<\/p>\n

(Note this is a generic DXF to SVG conversion and is applicable to many other CAD programs such as AutoCAD, Unigraphics, Catia, SolidWorks etc and is not limited to Alibre Xpress)<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

First of all what were the problems?<\/p>\n

Firstly, as I said, its convoluted and tedious…<\/p>\n

Secondly, by looking at the exported SVG files carefully I noticed the flightofideas plugin converted curves to polygons.\u00a0 This could become a problem on parts that need to fit snuggly together.\u00a0 I’ve been bitten by poor approximation of curves\/splines to polygons before so I’ll hate to make the same mistake again.<\/p>\n

Enter Kabeja!<\/h1>\n

Kabeja<\/a> is an open source utility\/plugin\/library for converting DXF’s to various output formats including (mainly) SVG!\u00a0 You can read more about it on the main webpage but it has allowed me to open DXF’s exported from Alibre in Inkscape \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

Yup, thats right, its an Inkscape Plugin<\/a> too.\u00a0 But i don’t use it that way, I use the command line\/GUI version for some bizarre reason.\u00a0 Yes I’m just weird.<\/p>\n

To use it from the command line, simply go to the directory you unzipped your Kabeja to (it should contain a launcher.jar<\/em> file) and type :-<\/p>\n

java -jar launcher.jar -nogui -pipeline svg yourfilein.dxf yourfileout.svg<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Or if you prefer it with the GUI, just type :-<\/p>\n

java -jar launcher.jar<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Of course you need a JRE installed, just download one from Sun<\/a> if you don’t have one…<\/p>\n

BUT THERE IS A CATCH!~~~<\/h1>\n

If you’re using this for the same reason I am, i.e. to get a decent SVG out for a laser cut, do NOT open the resultant SVG file from Inkscape!\u00a0 I scratched my head long and hard, googled for hours to find out why Kabeja scaled the SVG to fit to an portrait A4 sheet…with no results.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Its not Kabeja’s fault really.<\/p>\n

IMPORT<\/strong><\/span> the resultant SVG file into Inkscape.\u00a0 You can even import it onto one of Ponoko’s starter kit for a headscape!\u00a0 Happy Ponoko’ing!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I wrote in here of an extremely convoluted way of exporting Alibre Design files into SVG for laser cutting with Ponoko.\u00a0 There were a couple of problems…and of course after some googling there was a better way! (Note this is a generic DXF to SVG conversion and is applicable to many other CAD programs such … Continue reading “A better way to export SVG files from Alibre Xpress (for Ponoko!)”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[28,29,26,27],"class_list":["post-105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-engineering","tag-alibre-xpress","tag-inkscape","tag-laser-cutting","tag-ponoko"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madox.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madox.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madox.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madox.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madox.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.madox.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":107,"href":"https:\/\/www.madox.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105\/revisions\/107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madox.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madox.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madox.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}