I need to export a DXF of a sketch in order to import it into my EDA software. Since the sketch is on the X-Z plane, I need to rotate it so it is on the X-Y plane (otherwise the DXF is just a line). However despite my best efforts I cannot rotate the sketch. It will give me the UI to do it, I can attempt to rotate the sketch, but nothing happens.
There are no constraints active as far as I can tell, it isn’t locked in any way that I can see, it just won’t move or rotate.
Can anyone provide any insight into what might be happening?
Additionally exporting to a 2D drawing feels a bit clunky. Shouldn’t I be able to select the sketch and be asked which orientation I want to export? Or better yet, be able to select a body in whatever orientation and export that as a drawing?
I have tried every way I can think of to select the sketch, but most of the time I click on the sketch in the outline. It is the top of the outline, not in a folder, and everything else is hidden (not hiding things doesn’t change the result). It is the one and only thing slected
If you look a few down the list of help requests, you will see.
‘How can I rotate an inclined sketch to horizontal’
The same processes will work for you. Your sketch is currently inclined at 90 degrees. This makes it easier as you can rotate using the Move/Rotate widget, which will rotate in 5 degree steps.
Once you have rotated by 90, you then project the sketch to the XY plane.
This will create a new sketch in the item list panel, export this new sketch to DXF.
Someone may call out that there is a change in what is highlighted in the outline view, I promise you it does not matter.
But it is also a bit moot at this point. I spent more hours on this problem than it would take to recreate the PCB shape in my EDA package. Hell I just exported the actual part that corresponded to the sketch, and imported it into unfolded, exported that to a DXF, and edited out the parts I didn’t need in under 10 minutes.
As much as I love Shapr3D (and I do!), I think parts of the UX are bad. If this sketched is somehow locked, it would be lovely if there a obvious way to know and to what. Why can’t I pick the view I want to export to DXF as opposed to the assumption it has to be on the XY… with on screen documentation that that is what is being exported. And I could go on.
It is such a great app in so many ways, and I want it to succeed, but every time I work on a model in it, I run into something like this. I love the bug where hidden sketches will just stay on the screen sometimes, and the only way to change that fact is to close the app and reopen.
This isn’t about grand pronouncements or ultimatums, but my god am I frustrated by an app I want to spend all my time using
