Solved: DXF tiling

Do you have a question you want to ask an existing QCAD user about QCAD and what you can do with it? Do you want to know if a particular feature exists? This is the place to ask.

Moderator: andrew

Forum rules

Always indicate your operating system and QCAD version.

Attach drawing files and screenshots.

Post one question per topic.

Post Reply
chrispedersen
Junior Member
Posts: 19
Joined: Fri May 21, 2021 11:42 pm

Solved: DXF tiling

Post by chrispedersen » Mon Jun 07, 2021 5:12 pm

I suspect a manual dive would answer this question.

Suppose I have a dxf thats 14' x 7 feet. My cutting table is 12 x 8.

I think the current version of QCad can tile a drawing, to a printer. But I didn't see a way to tile a dxf. Can it also tile a DXF; automatically?

Follow-up questions:
a). If I tile a drawing to the printer, can it be printed to an eps file? Could I then convert the eps to dxf?
b). Predominantly, I"m interested in trimming in the table feed direction (only). How difficult would it be to run a function that would split a dxf into two portions. In the above example, two 7x7 ft sections. I would want to insert a (dashed?) line as the sectioning entity.

Thank you!
Last edited by chrispedersen on Wed Jun 23, 2021 5:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
Husky
Moderator/Drawing Help/Testing
Posts: 4935
Joined: Wed May 11, 2011 9:25 am
Location: USA

Re: DXF tiling

Post by Husky » Mon Jun 07, 2021 6:54 pm

chrispedersen wrote:
Mon Jun 07, 2021 5:12 pm
Suppose I have a dxf thats 14' x 7 feet. My cutting table is 12 x 8.
What kind of drawing is that? Why is the format 14' by 7'?
chrispedersen wrote:
Mon Jun 07, 2021 5:12 pm
Can it also tile a DXF; automatically?
To my knowledge there is not such an automatic function in QCAD. And honestly I don't see why it should have a dxf tile function. Depending on the drawing it should be easy to stay in a limited area of 12' by 8' or to tile it manually to that size. But without more details it is just a wild guessing around the possibility's ... :wink:
Work smart, not hard: QCad Pro
Win10/64, QcadPro, QcadCam version: Current.
If a thread is considered as "solved" please change the title of the first post to "[solved] Title..."

User avatar
andrew
Site Admin
Posts: 9037
Joined: Fri Mar 30, 2007 6:07 am

Re: DXF tiling

Post by andrew » Mon Jun 07, 2021 7:11 pm

You could use the Modify > Clip to Rectangle tool to clip your drawing to the size of a tile and repeat for all tiles:
https://qcad.org/doc/qcad/latest/refere ... oRectangle

I wouldn't recommend to go the printing / PDF / EPS route as these outputs are really optimized for printing not further processing.

chrispedersen
Junior Member
Posts: 19
Joined: Fri May 21, 2021 11:42 pm

Re: DXF tiling

Post by chrispedersen » Tue Jun 15, 2021 2:36 pm

Husky wrote:
Mon Jun 07, 2021 6:54 pm
chrispedersen wrote:
Mon Jun 07, 2021 5:12 pm
Suppose I have a dxf thats 14' x 7 feet. My cutting table is 12 x 8.
What kind of drawing is that? Why is the format 14' by 7'?
chrispedersen wrote:
Mon Jun 07, 2021 5:12 pm
Can it also tile a DXF; automatically?
To my knowledge there is not such an automatic function in QCAD. And honestly I don't see why it should have a dxf tile function. Depending on the drawing it should be easy to stay in a limited area of 12' by 8' or to tile it manually to that size. But without more details it is just a wild guessing around the possibility's ... :wink:
So my apologies for asking a lot of presumably simple questions, and using nomenclature that probably isn't what you're accustomed to.

My customer uses cardboard templates as stencils to cut fabric. So if he needs a stencil that is 14x7 - its too long for my table, but there is no problem using two pieces 7x7, (or 6x7 and 8x7, or ...)

So I am wondering if there is an automatic way to split a dxf file that is too long into multiple pieces, much like is accomplished for printing by your tiling algorythmn

User avatar
andrew
Site Admin
Posts: 9037
Joined: Fri Mar 30, 2007 6:07 am

Re: DXF tiling

Post by andrew » Tue Jun 15, 2021 2:42 pm

Again, Modify > Clip to Rectangle is pretty much that. You'd draw a rectangle around your tile and QCAD splits all entities at the tile edge. You can then move the two parts to separate drawings, etc. as desired.

User avatar
Husky
Moderator/Drawing Help/Testing
Posts: 4935
Joined: Wed May 11, 2011 9:25 am
Location: USA

Re: DXF tiling

Post by Husky » Tue Jun 15, 2021 10:06 pm

This could be one way to accomplish that task with the suggested tool by Andrew:

Clip to rectangle.gif
Clip to rectangle.gif (1.41 MiB) Viewed 10116 times
Work smart, not hard: QCad Pro
Win10/64, QcadPro, QcadCam version: Current.
If a thread is considered as "solved" please change the title of the first post to "[solved] Title..."

chrispedersen
Junior Member
Posts: 19
Joined: Fri May 21, 2021 11:42 pm

Re: DXF tiling

Post by chrispedersen » Wed Jun 23, 2021 5:44 pm

You guys are brilliant and helpful. I'm changing the topic to solved. Next thing is for me to try some scripting!
Run for the hills.....

Post Reply

Return to “Pre-sales Questions”