Inkscape makes me sad

[Jeff Crews]

Hey-

Now that I have working printers I want to make some stuff. This requires in many cases that I extrude .dxf's. I installed Big Blue Saw's .dxf extension for Inkscape, which is supposed to make it work.

It doesn't. The .dxf's are still not extrudable in Heekscad. Bah. What are you all using, and/or have any of you fixed the Inkscape dxf function?

JSC

[Bill Culverhouse]

I've not taken the time to learn heekscad. I use Sketchup. Import DXF

push/pull face, type in mm to extrude.

 

bam.

 

Course then you need the STL export plugin, and I can't remember if I had

to get a DXF import plugin or not, now that I think about it.

 

I've use openscad, but with similar can't read the DXF problems. Which is not

so much a problem in Inkscape's, Illustrator's or Coreldraw's (each of which I've used)
abiltiy to export, but more of a severe lacking on Heekscad and openscad to read

a modern DXF file.

 

I know both solidworks and inventor do it just fine. Not really a good choice for

the weekend cad monkey.

 

Maybe the Blender? Another program I consider to be high learning curve for

just wanting to do the one thing.

Anyone have any other suggestions?

I'd be glad to throw something in and extrude it for you if you'd like.

I know it's kind of a hassle for you though.

 

I'd also be glad to show you the howto in sketchup if you have a OSX or

Win machine of course.

 

-b

[Bill Culverhouse]

Warning: Crapload of Text.

 

http://wiki.makerbot.com/isdale-making-3d-logo-blender

 

And no pics. Boo. Also seems to assume a basic knowledge of Blender. Boo again.

 

-b

[Bill Culverhouse]

Just fiddled my way through. The MBI page seems to be for an older than 2.5

version of blender. So a few points.

Right click to select curve.

Tab to enter edit mode.

In the properties view (I believe the default is for Properties to be on the right side of the viewport) click the Object data tab (Looks like a curve)

Under Geometry - Modification there is the Extrude box.

As stated in the MBI page the number entered there does seemingly weird things. Enter small numbers.

 

Then the object can be exported as STL.

 

-b

[Drew Nelson]

Historically I've used Solidworks.  As Bill pointed out that's not a good option for the hobbyist.  However, Autodesk now has a free product, Autodesk 123D.  While it has some ugly conditions in its TOS it might well get the job done.

--Drew