.dwg/.dxf doesn't work :-(

[JacekSwierczek]

Hi,

when I saw .dwg/.dxf import in v2 I decided to buy Affinity V2 Universal Licence. I've got V1 with non working import .svg 😞

I'm very disappointed because in v2 import also doesn't work!

Have you ever tested it?
When I imported the attached file I saw the terrible effect of importing.
Squares are not squares, circles are not circles, dimensions should be 50mmx50mm…

Fix it, please...

50_r14.dwg

[GarryP]

The attached image shows what I get when I import the DMG using “Apply Drawing Scale” and “Fit Model To Page”.

There may be some DMG items, such as dimensions, which may not yet be imported (it’s still ‘early days’ for the DWG import functionality).

Have you tried exporting to DXF before importing into the Affinity application, just to see if it makes any difference?

[JacekSwierczek]

Arrows aren't placed in .dwg, I added dimensions in the image only for info.
The square should be 50mmx50mm. In the image you showed dimensions are not preserved.

As you can see in CorelDraw everything looks fine...

[GarryP]

I think this may have something to do with the Drawing Scale but I don’t know enough about that functionality to give further advice.
Hopefully someone else will be able to give better help.

[JacekSwierczek]

Thank you for your involvement.

[Tim France]

Hi @JacekSwierczek

I've had a look at you file in both AutoCAD and Designer.  Your drawing's units are set to unitless but its model layout is set to 8.50 inches x 11.00 inches.  There is an AutoCAD application preference that dictates what the drawing units should be defaulted to when the drawing units are set to unitless, but this is not stored in the document itself - it really is just an application preference.  All Designer knows is that the circle has a diameter of 40 units and seeing as the model's layout is in inches and we are importing the model, we default to inches.

If you turn off "Fit model to page" during import, Designer will set the page size to 8.5 x 11 inches, as stated in the document, and import the entities without scaling them.  They will be much bigger than the page (because scale to fit is turned off), so you will have to zoom out and select all to see the circle and square.

I hope this explains why things are different to what you might have expected.

Edit: if you import as above and then resize the document to 60x60 inches, you get this.  In case you're wondering why we don't simply set the spread size so it shows the whole model, it's because a) we'd have to guess whether to override the dimensions specified in the document and b) AutoCAD supports some incredibly large units (Light years being an example), and if we tried to convert to a sensible Designer unit and drawing scale was disabled, it would create documents with impossibly huge dimensions.

[FiH3D]

AutoCAD itself is unitless and the units are displayed at whatever unit setting is saved in a drawing (default is inches). A 50mm x 50mm square is internally a 50 x 50 square that AutoCAD displays as mm, inches etc. Layout is just for printing and has to have its own independent scale since Model Space is 1:1.  Whatever units are set in non-Model tabs shouldn't necessarily be taken to be the "real" drawing units... unless there are user created layouts that might need to be selected instead of the Model layout. When the 50_r14 drawing is imported into Illustrator (don't have Designer V2 yet) you have the option to set the units and select Model or whatever Layout spaces are saved in the drawing. In this case there aren't any Layouts defined and Illustrator ignores the default Layout1 and Layout2. Model Space doesn't have a defined limit (aside from the double precision limit of DWG) so it looks like the 8.5x11 is coming from whatever the default system printer is. Also if "scale to fit artboard" is enabled AI scales the file uniformly to the best fit and doesn't disproportionately scale the file.

Edited November 17, 2022 by FiH3D
spelling and clarification

[JacekSwierczek]

Hi @Tim France,

When I do import my file (.dwg) to AutoCAD, Inkscape, Corel and it looks good, as programmer with over 30 year experience, I can only say: Affinity should do their job! I pay for it and I expect working product.

[Timothy Bliss]

Would be nice to export back out.... totally useless feature without it

[Tim France]

Hi @JacekSwierczek,

I have done some further testing.

AutoCAD does open the drawing with the model's units set to unitless (not mm). This is expected.

Illustrator imports the drawing with the units set to pts.

From your posts above, it sounds like Inkscape and and CorelDRAW default to mm.

To remove any further confusion, I have added a units combo to the import options when importing the model, to simulate the AutoDesk application setting described above.  It is not present for paper space layouts (the "pages" in the import option) because they can only be in inches, mm or pixels, and shouldn't be overridden.

The change will be available in the next update.

[JacekSwierczek]

I'm looking forward for the new version.

Thanks

 

Jacek

[Calvert]

Yes, Im finding that AD doesnt play well with many of the other software. Im dealing with similar .pdf issues.