Imported files (STEP, IGES) are not sketches, but bodies with strange properties and behaviours

I have a lot of dwg and dxf files and unfortunately Shapr3D cannot import these directly (seems a highly requested feature however!).

So I am testing conversions with two Mac programs: FreeCAD and MoI. I am converting a very simple 2D rectangle and the conversions seems fine with both programs and either STEP or IGES format, exact dimensions are mantained and every segment is selectable once imported into Shapr3D.

However there are some strange behaviours:

  1. Closed shapes are not recognized, and I found no way to connect the segments to form a closed rectangle (for extrusions);
  2. Even stranger: the imported lines are placed into a group called “Imported”. If I try to translate I cannot select this group of 8 lines, but if I select every line individually I can translate them!

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What is going on?

Yeah. That’s unfortunate, but imported bodies are not converted to sketches, and we don’t generate sketch fillings from wire bodies. Not great. DXF import is on the roadmap, we don’t know however when we can release it.

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Thank you Istvan. I noticed the imported draws are seen as bodies, not lines, and infact they are placed in to a body group called “imported”.

But how do you explain that I am able to select each body inside this “imported” group and translate/move/ecc…, but if I start a translate operation and then, when I am asked to choose a group, I choose this “imported” group, it tells me it’s an “invalid selection”?

And how do you explain that the imported bodies, even if they have edges that are long as my sketches, shows a different length? It’s quite a nonsense! And the volume has the same numeric value of the length!

Check out these pictures:
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Can you please post the workspace in .shapr format so we could take a look?

1 Like

Sure! Here it is.
imported bodies.shapr (136 KB)

Thank you Istvan.