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Author Topic: OK, I give up! How do I get ACAD dxf files to open in LCAM 2.02?  (Read 17488 times)

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Re: OK, I give up! How do I get ACAD dxf files to open in LCAM 2.02?
« Reply #20 on: May 29, 2007, 11:24:45 PM »
Hi Fiedd,

Well I'll be! I just opened a dxf in ACAD, made sure I saved it as a version R12 and then tried opening it in LCAM and it failed to open. Then I closed the file in ACAD (leaving ACAD still running) and tried opening it again in LCAM and it opened!!!

Thanks for that bit of wisdom, Fiedd.  ;D

Apparently, ACAD is blocking access to that file from other programs while it is opened in ACAD, like some other programs do while their files are open.

And that explains why, when I use another program to make a copy of the file in a different version, that it works, because I am actually opening the new file I created while the original is still open in ACAD, so I'm not trying to access that one. It also explains a couple other strange failures that seemed to make no sense -- I don't remember the exact details now, but I know this was the reason.

Just tried it with a version 2004 ACAD dxf and it opens just fine as long as I close it in ACAD first!

Thanks again, Fiedd! You hit the nail right on the head!
« Last Edit: May 29, 2007, 11:43:34 PM by TetraLite »
-Mark
Re: OK, I give up! How do I get ACAD dxf files to open in LCAM 2.02?
« Reply #21 on: May 30, 2007, 05:56:01 AM »
Sure Tetralite,
Another thing I found out, if you get a lot of extra lines in your .dxf file from ACad to LCam, it is the defpoints that don't always show up in the ACad drawing, but as long as you have that layer, they show up as lines in Lazycam. You can't delete that layer in ACad's original file, but you can copy just the layers you want to keep and paste to a new file, then those defpoints won't show up in the new drawing, or in LCam. Not susre why, but that's the way it works.
Re: OK, I give up! How do I get ACAD dxf files to open in LCAM 2.02?
« Reply #22 on: May 30, 2007, 06:52:09 AM »
Haven't noticed the extra lines -- at least not yet -- but I will know what to do if it happens. Thanks again Fiedd!
So far the drawings I've been experimenting with are pretty simple - just a few circles and points for drilling.
Once I got the tool setup and how to manage the layers figured out, LCAM works pretty well. I have been using it to generate some usable G-code.
-Mark

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Re: OK, I give up! How do I get ACAD dxf files to open in LCAM 2.02?
« Reply #23 on: May 30, 2007, 09:42:33 PM »
Sure Tetralite,
Another thing I found out, if you get a lot of extra lines in your .dxf file from ACad to LCam, it is the defpoints that don't always show up in the ACad drawing, but as long as you have that layer, they show up as lines in Lazycam. You can't delete that layer in ACad's original file, but you can copy just the layers you want to keep and paste to a new file, then those defpoints won't show up in the new drawing, or in LCam. Not susre why, but that's the way it works.


The defpoints layer contains dimension info. If you delete all your dimensions, you can delete the defpoints layer.
Gerry

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JointCAM Dovetail and Box Joint software
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Offline ger21

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Re: OK, I give up! How do I get ACAD dxf files to open in LCAM 2.02?
« Reply #24 on: May 30, 2007, 09:44:39 PM »

Apparently, ACAD is blocking access to that file from other programs while it is opened in ACAD, like some other programs do while their files are open.


I don't think it's AutoCAD causing the problem. The .dxf converter we use at work (CadCODE, www.cadcode.com ) will process .dxf files while they are open in AutoCAD without any problems. ACAD 2002. Not sure what version you're using.
Gerry

2010 Screenset
http://www.thecncwoodworker.com/2010.html

JointCAM Dovetail and Box Joint software
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Re: OK, I give up! How do I get ACAD dxf files to open in LCAM 2.02?
« Reply #25 on: May 31, 2007, 03:34:31 PM »
I'm using vers. 2005. It is definitely ACAD that is stopping me from opening files in LCAM while they are still open in ACAD. I know that because if I don't close them in ACAD they don't open in LCAM and if I close them in ACAD they do open in LCAM and it doesn't matter what version the files are in from R10 to 2004 -- they all work in LCAM as long as I close them first in ACAD.

When you do a conversion you probably are saving the file with a new name, so you are not trying to alter the original. Perhaps your conversion program doesn't look like a threat to the open file in ACAD because it is opening it as read only (I'm just guessing here), while opening in LCAM may be trying to open it with read-write capabilities enabled (still guessing).

All I know for sure is that with ACAD 2005 I can't open files in LCAM while they are still open in ACAD and the problem goes away when I close in ACAD.
-Mark

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Re: OK, I give up! How do I get ACAD dxf files to open in LCAM 2.02?
« Reply #26 on: June 02, 2007, 12:59:25 AM »
I'm using vers. 2005. It is definitely ACAD that is stopping me from opening files in LCAM while they are still open in ACAD.

How do you know it's not lazyCAM? I just tried LazyCAM with a file open in 2007, and it said no entities found. However, I can open the .dxf with Notepad while it's open in AutoCAD. Which leads me to believe that it's not AutoCAD.

At work we're always opening .dwg files that are open on another copy of AutoCAD. Not quite the same, but very similar.
Gerry

2010 Screenset
http://www.thecncwoodworker.com/2010.html

JointCAM Dovetail and Box Joint software
http://www.g-forcecnc.com/jointcam.html
Re: OK, I give up! How do I get ACAD dxf files to open in LCAM 2.02?
« Reply #27 on: June 02, 2007, 05:32:43 PM »
When ACAD is installed in Windows, by default, it sets Notepad as it's text editor, so ACAD and Notepad do not conflict. When I can't open a file in LCAM that is currently open in ACAD, and then, when I close that file in ACAD it will open in LCAM, that can mean only one thing as far as I can tell. ACAD has a hold on that file while it is open in ACAD. There are security settings in ACAD that allow or disallow users concurrent access to files, however I haven't seen any user settings in ACAD for allowing or disallowing concurrent access by other programs. Many programs won't allow changes to files that are currently open. This protects the file from being altered by two people at the same time and changes by one user may not be seen by the other (the file would have to be reloaded to see the changes) -- could be a real mess! However, ACAD will allow it (from another ACAD user) if it is set up that way.

All I know for sure is that I can open a file in LCAM if the same file is not currently open in ACAD, and I can't open the file if it is currently open in ACAD.
-Mark
Re: OK, I give up! How do I get ACAD dxf files to open in LCAM 2.02?
« Reply #28 on: June 05, 2007, 08:31:43 AM »
You can have Acad running, but the .dxf file you want to load in lcam must be closed in Acad...........
Re: OK, I give up! How do I get ACAD dxf files to open in LCAM 2.02?
« Reply #29 on: June 05, 2007, 09:06:10 AM »
Exactly!
-Mark