Hi Jim Aaron was also kind enough to answer my dxf related questions last week. He showed me where the source code is for the scaling. I have a long thread dxf related questions I can forward. I am reading though the low level details from some documentation listed in the scripts comments. "In the tarball the python script lives in share/extensions/dxf_outlines.py. In ubuntu I'd guess it lives in /usr/share/inkscape/extensions/dxf_outlines.py." Hi Aaron I am not a great programmer but fortunately I can program in Python. Do you think the dxf output from Inkscape can be made useful for standard CAD stuff? I was going to write a script with a GUI to allow people to control the scaling? Thanks-Patrick Aaron Spike wrote:

Hi Aaron Thanks for all your dxf help! I would really like to get involved with extending Inkscapes dxf support. I would however need some guidance and I am overloaded so progress will be a little slow. Here is what I was thinking: Following along with your feelings on the matter- "But I think we must be careful not to forget the class of users for whom the script was originally created. I would like to retain this simple, preconfigured output option for them" We could create another menu that just brings up: wishblade robocraft blah blah cutter etc custom The menu items would simply bring up save-as dialogs pre-configured with the correct scaling for their device, only the custom dialog would bring up a dialog that could have variable scaling. If other Inkscape users wanted to email me/mail me their dxf outputs and the actual outputs from their devices, I could reconfigure the scaling and we could add another menu item. I guess I am going to have to learn a little Qcad/Autcad. However if I did this right I might be able to save others from having to learn these other Apps. This new Inkscape feature would really scratch my itch too. I am trying to get replacement parts made. If I can scan them, convert them to svg, then dxf. Then I can send off the CAD files to machine shops for quotes and fabrication. I wanted to buy a CNC mill, but you know it is just so cheap to get these shops to make stuff, that it doesn't make sense. What do you think?-Patrick Aaron Spike wrote:

Hi Bibi Thanks for your help. I really think we can do this and I would really like to try. Your offer of help with the cutters makes it even more do-able. I would really like to know what Aaron thinks. I can do all the work but with Aaron's experience pointing me in the right direction it could save time and produce a better result. Terry has also offered to help with the dxf files too and he is a mechanical designer. Let's see what tomorrow brings :-) Good night-Patrick Thank again! Bibi Morris wrote:

Patrick wrote: As long as Bibi is happy, I'm happy. :-) I'm still not exactly sure what new needs we should address. But I'm happy to help whenever I can. Aaron Spike

Patrick McCavery wrote: If you still think C/C++ that might be a much better way to go. You will have access to more information in the Inkscape internals and you could use (and improve) lib2geom to do the curve conversion/approximation much more quickly and flexibly. Plus you could base your work on the abandoned GSoC DXF project from two years ago. We could resurrect that work so it isn't wasted and get way more out of this in the end. Quite honestly the little python script was just a stop gap and there are limits to what we can do with it. Aaron Spike

On Oct 22, 2007, at 7:26 AM, Patrick wrote: What I've been promoting is integrating hooks so that extensions in other languages can access and modify things and let Inkscape do all the presentation work. This would most likely be done using a DOM tree representing internals so that things can be accessed in a manner consistent with accessing the document itself. I'd gone over this with the guys from Scribus, including the main person who'd worked on their integration of python, and he'd said it was a much better approach than having to integrate ui work from Python like they did.

Aaron, Some of these ladies are so afraid of computers that they need to know how to down load and install a ttf file on them! It just intimidates them to try and use their new scrapbooking cutters, and is not the fault of inkscape, just their fear of doing something wrong. Many have even given up dusting around the computers in fear of hitting a button to turn it on or off! I have send them all the links to the tutorials and they just want someone to hand hold when they try something new! Inkscape when the tool bars change with each function, really mystifies them! Bibi -- Inkscapes by Bibi Morris All cutter files designed exclusively in Inkscape Find my Cutting designs at http:\\inkscapesbybibi.cuttersmarket.com www.Cuttersmarket.com Private Inkscape, and WB/CR/Silhouette classes available

Bibi Morris wrote: To work well with Robomaster we should really ditch using DXF altogether and start working in GSD. If you remember I started looking at GSDs. So far my attempts to find a programmer with a cutter and another programmer with some math background to assist me in this have failed. Perhaps someday I'll have to get a cutter like this so that I have something to work on. Of course time is short too. :-) Aaron Spike

Hi, I have already done the same kind of thing but from dxf to svg. have a look at http://sancelot.wordpress.com/2007/07/13/enhanced-dxf2svg/ you will find my code : // create curves points from spline definition void spline::compute_path() { int step = 25; double t,t2,t3; double Cm1,C0,C1,C2; ctrl_pts r,Pm1,p0,p1,p2; computed_path.clear(); for (int i=0;i< control_points.size() - 3;i++) { Pm1 = control_points[i]; p0 = control_points[i+1]; p1 = control_points[i+2]; p2 = control_points[i+3]; for (int s=0;s<=step;s++) { t = double(s) / (double) step; t2 = t * t; t3 = t2 * t; Cm1 = -1.0/6.0 * t3 + 0.5 * t2 - 0.5 * t + 1.0/6.0; C0 = .5 * t3 - t2 +2.0/3.0; C1 = -.5*t3+.5*t2+.5*t+1.0/6.0; C2 = 1.0/6.0*t3; r.x = Cm1*Pm1.x+C0*p0.x + C1*p1.x+C2*p2.x; r.y = Cm1*Pm1.y+C0*p0.y + C1*p1.y+C2*p2.y; r.z = 0; computed_path.push_back(r); } } } Best Regards S.Ancelot Aaron Spike a écrit :

Stéphane ANCELOT wrote: If this approximates NURB curves with Cubic Bezier Curves this will be a very useful routine. How is it licensed? Aaron Spike

Patrick wrote: You had asked where the GSoC project went. I really don't remember what happened. I think it might live at http://sourceforge.net/projects/dxf-svg-convert/. IIRC Kees Cook looked through it and found a number of security issues. More information could probably be found on the Mailing list archives if you search for the author's name. I still think reviving this would be a good idea. Didn't it even have provisions for rendering 3d data into 2d? Certainly. GSD satisfies the needs of a much smaller community. This has been discussed. We would like to create an Export menu for lossy formats like these. Another option would be to look at code in the Uberconvertor (VectorSection) project and see what can be transfered over into the Uniconvertor project. I think this would be the ultimate. Not sure if it belongs in Inkscape or at the OS level. Most, if not all, of the desktop cutters used by the scrapbooking communities are bound to Win32. Supporting these devices in linux would be a huge gain for those communities, I think. But it would be difficult to support, because there doesn't seem to be the techinical resources inside the communities (no offense meant :-) ). Aaron Spike

Patrick wrote: We'd have to talk to Ted to be sure, but I believe input and output "extensions" are fairly easy to create and easy to add or remove from the core. Perhaps somebody familiar with this sort of thing on linux could give us a better idea of how linux does these things. Sound good to me. Please subscribe to the dev list. Aaron Spike

Aaron Spike a écrit : The version you can find on my website is an enhanced version of the GSoC version dxf2svg. dxf2svg is GPL licensed , since I did not have had any answer from the author , I made available this slightly enhanced version through my website. However, you can copy and modify the above code (I wrote it, I grant you to do so ...). Best Regards S.Ancelot

Hi Aaron I will search the archives tonight as I have no way of contacting Kees. I think I might be able to write/modify a program to log serial/USB port activity on Windows computers. We could then translate the commands into a Linux program, this would give people the option to run the cutters from Linux. -Patrick Aaron Spike wrote:

Hello Everyone :) I'm not super technologically savvy, I probably only know enough to get myself in trouble ;) I found this thread by doing searches, as I'm having the problem with my DXF files coverted to GSD files in using one of the aforementioned digital craft cutters (the Silhouette, to be exact, manufactured by Graphtec and using the Robomaster software also mentioned above). I'm interested in any fix to get these files to cut properly once they are in GSD format. I've contacted QuicKutz already, the company who has contracted Graphtec to make their product, the Silhouette Digital Craft Cutter, and I'm guessing that any change on their end, if even effected, would be super slow, at best. This seems to be the way things go when big corporations are involved. Wondering if the decision had been made to possibly include a "save as GSD" in another version of Inkscape. I can't really tell by following the thread as I'm not sure who is involved in actual Inkscape development here (Ted? Aaron?) I'll check the Inkscape site again next, but I don't recall finding anything on their site about it under the FAQ's yesterday. So glad I found this thread as I understand the problem (albeit in a techie unsavvy limited fashion) better now ;) Thanks for whatever information anyone can provide! Cindy Shirley Pena wrote: -- View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/Inkscape-and-DXF-files--tp13328343p14603455.html Sent from the Inkscape - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

What problems are you having with cutting the files that you create in Inkscape and convert to GSD with Robomaster? This is the basic problem. When I load DXF files into the Robomaster program and save them as a GSD file (which, in Robomaster, you have to do if you want to save the file at all, it's your only save option), at some point in the process, it appears to me that the file data may be getting corrupted somehow. Sometimes the file will cut cleanly once, but sometimes it won't. And if I copy and paste the image (what I like to do from a DXF file that's been imported into a nice clean blank GSD file so that the positioning in the Robomaster program is as I'm used to seeing it) or if I copy and paste the image to get multiple copies of it to cut on one sheet of paper, or even if I just move the image around it will usually (and this happens to me almost certainly every single time) somehow start cutting askew, usually in such a manner that the letters don't close properly or cut over other letters or over themselves, the cuts are off-line, if you know what I mean. The lines no longer match up to the file placement, something most noticable in titles I've created from text. I have wasted a lot of specialty paper in this manner, unfortunately. It's hard to explain in words, but I have photos of the offending files if you'd like to see them if you can let me know how to email you, I can give you a visual example. Basically, if I want to save a DXF file I've loaded it automatically converts it to a GSD file, and that seems to be the point where the problems begin. The image on the screen will look exactly as it has looked, but the output will cut the patterned lines off kilter. This really messes up titles quite badly, and so using Inkscape to create welded word titles yields inconsistant results. I love creating artwork for my Silhouette, it's a big one of the many reasons I love my machine, and I love the ability to weld and import the files, but it saddens me that I have this problem that ends up wasting so much of my paper (and usually I use specialty paper that is fairly pricey) :/ It has even occurred when I have reopened a file I've cut successfully before with no changes made to the file more than simply moving the image to another part of the virtual "mat" placement on screen, so that it will cut on another section of paper. Today I figured a work-around, but it's not a great one. If I create the image in Inkscape and save it as a pdf file, I can open it in Adobe PhotoShop Elements (I don't have any high powered Adobe programs) and save it as a jpg and then open Robomaster and autotrace the jpg to get a rendition of the file. But it's not graphically completely accurate anymore, the letters will not be as smooth or well proportioned as it's an autotrace of a picture. The file could also be printed out of Inkscape and scanned with a scanner and thus converted to an image file and then loaded into Robomaster via Autotrace as well, but it might be an even rougher conversion. I've emailed the QuicKutz Customer Rep that I've been going back and forth with about this problem, and asked about what you mentioned in your last post to me, but I don't know if they are very proprietary about their gsd files, or if Graphtec has control of that, or what needs to happen to permit that type of thing, but I'm checking. Bibi, I think, explained it probably best here, up earlier in the thread. She mentioned Bezier curves and how they import with some "aqua" colored lines. I'm having that same result. I found something under the Effects menu, Modify Path, Flatten Beziers. I tried that, hoping it might help, but I couldn't see a difference on the screen and it officially failed when cutting. Also, it did import the dxf and showed the aqua lines again, so I'm not sure if it really worked. In addition, in that experiment, I avoided grouping the image in Inkscape before saving as a dxf and I also did not set line setting colors in Inkscape (which I never do, I always set that in Robomaster) since Bibi seemed to implicate both processes in part of the problem between dxf and gsd, but none of that made a difference. That's the issue, I think, though perhaps not explained as well as it could be. Thanks for your time and researching this, I really appreciate it, and I'm sure hundreds of other Silhouette or Robo Craft users would appreciate any kind of fix as well :) Cindy -- View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/Inkscape-and-DXF-files--tp13328343p14608115.html Sent from the Inkscape - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

Forgive my naivety, but would it not be best to implement either of these as output extensions, similar to this one for HPGL cutter that someone was working on here: http://www.3x6.nl/inkscape_hpgl/Linux%20inkscape%20save%20as%20HPGL%20fil... rather than a a core part of Inkscape? -Rob A> On Jan 3, 2008 7:48 PM, Patrick wrote:

Rob Antonishen wrote: Yes. Output extensions are exactly what we are talking about. Aaron Spike