Importing or Placing DXF in Affinity Designer 2

[Bruno Jolie]

I have attempted multiple times to move DXF files into a project. Saved in multiple formats such as SVG(?) or DXF do not seem to work.

A Rubber stamp icon shows up for the DXF place import and I can click on a node and stretch out a window then release the mouse button.

Nothing appears except a listing for it in the layers to the right.

Multiple attempts at settings for visibility, colour, background have led to nothing.

The image can be imported via JPG format but, takes up most of the page with a rectangular frame around the 3d ball image I am trying to import.

Does DXF work or is there a lot of debugging required?

If it doesn't work, can I trim the rectangular frame to end up with many variable sized balls I am trying to reproduce..

A INDBALL.dxf

[MikeTO]

It's importing as zero width and height which is why you can't see it so this is something Serif will need to look at.

It opens fine in LibreOffice.

 

[Dan C]

Hi @Bruno Jolie,

Welcome to the Affinity Forums

Thanks for your report! I can confirm I've been able to replicate this issue with your file - as Mike mentions on macOS the file is placed with 0 height/width, whereas on Windows the application crashes when attempting to place this same file.

Therefore I have logged this as a bug with our development team, to be investigated further and improve our DXF importer in a future update.

I hope this helps!

[MikeTO]

3 hours ago, Dan C said:

I can confirm I've been able to replicate this issue with your file - as Mike mentions on macOS the file is placed with 0 height/width, whereas on Windows the application crashes when attempting to place this same file.

This isn't important now but I forgot to mention that it crashes on macOS if you try to open the file directly rather than placing it.

[Dan C]

Thanks Mike - I had missed that! I'll update the development log now for completeness

[Tim France]

Hi @Bruno Jolie,

I've taken a look at your file and can confirm it is a bug in Affinity. The problem is the file contains a single Polyface Mesh, an entity that Affinity does not support. Once we've skipped over that during import, there is nothing left in the document and due to a particular set of circumstances, things go wrong.

I've fixed the crash and while I was in that area, I added support for polyface meshes. The changes will appear in a future version of Affinity (likely to be 2.4)

Tim

[Affinity Info Bot]

The issue "[User File] Placing DXF file crashes Windows, creates a 0x0 size object on macOS" (REF: AF-1488) has been fixed by the developers in internal build "2.4.0.2222".
This fix should soon be available as a customer beta and is planned for inclusion in the next customer release.
Customer beta builds are announced here and you can participate by following these instructions.
If you still experience this problem once you are using that build version (or later) please reply to this thread including @Serif Info Bot to notify us.

[yesterdayjones]

@Affinity Info Bot I'm still experiencing this issue on Windows 11 with the DXF file found here on thingiverse.com: 168HP_6U_Skiff_83mm.dxf. I get the "DWG/DXF Import" dialog box, accept the defaults and click OK. Affinity Designer then displays an empty workspace and the text "Loading 1 document..." in the upper right corner. After a minute or two, the application crashes and closes. It's the same whether I drag the file in or open it from the menu.

I've noticed that the the application consumes all of my system's free memory before it closes, so it might be getting killed by Windows instead of crashing. Last time I tried, I watched it chew through almost 44 gigabytes of memory (screenshot attached).

Info:

- Windows 11 23H2 with 64Gb of RAM.
- Affinity Designer 2.5.3

[Tim France]

Hi @yesterdayjones,

I can confirm that this is a (different) bug. It has been fixed and will be available in the next development cycle (2.6.0).

Thanks,

Tim