topic Illustrator — multiple overlapping lines for laser in Collaboration with other software

Archicad >> Illustrator >> Lasercutting

Anonymous — Mon, 05 Nov 2018 08:52:41 GMT

Hi! My team and I just finished designing our building in Archicad, and wish to export it to Illustrator to then cut our model out of cardboard with a laser to make a model. After browsing through several forums, I gathered that I have to export my views as a .dwg file and then open it on illustrator. I tried exporting the file in different ways, but illustrator keeps telling me that 'the file 'xx' is an unknown format and cannot be opened'.

I have the latest versions of archicad 22 and illustrator cc 2019. MacBook, mojave(10.14), 2018.

It would be great if y'all could give us some suggestions!

Re: Archicad >> Illustrator >> Lasercutting

Lingwisyer — Mon, 05 Nov 2018 09:19:21 GMT

Not sure how to fix your problem, but if you have AutoCAD, you will want to run the command "Overkill" as you get a lot of overlapping lines from ArchiCAD. When using Corel Draw, having overlapping lines would result in the laser running over the same section multiple times in rapid succession which may cause broader burns and possibly start a fire. Not sure if Illustrator will run into this same issue.

Ling.

Illustrator — multiple overlapping lines for laser

Anonymous — Mon, 05 Nov 2018 11:23:40 GMT

My team designed a building in Archicad, then exported a view as a pdf and imported it into Illustrator to then laser it onto cardboard and build our model.

We have run into the following problem: after having imported the file into Illustrator, we found that all of the lines in the view are layered over one another three times, meaning to avoid the laser engraving each line three times, we have to delete two of the three. Of course, we can do this manually, but it's taking a massive amount of time. Is there a way to delete two of these line layers with just a few clicks?

MacOS, Mojave, 14.10, Illustrator CC 2019, archicad 22

Re: Archicad >> Illustrator >> Lasercutting

Eduardo Rolon — Mon, 05 Nov 2018 13:23:09 GMT

Try exporting to an older version of DWG or to DXF, that might help with the import.
To avoid overlapping on the PDF you might try creating a Worksheet for the drawing and running from the Menu Edit->Reshape-> Linework Consolidation to avoid the line. You can select all the fills and deleted them too IIRC.

Re: Archicad >> Illustrator >> Lasercutting

Anonymous — Wed, 07 Nov 2018 09:27:21 GMT

I would try with pdf. Using Worksheet should also help as ejrolon suggested.

Re: Archicad >> Illustrator >> Lasercutting

Anonymous — Sun, 11 Nov 2018 14:43:55 GMT

Clean up lines with the 'Linework consolidation' command. Edit>reshape>linework consolidation

Delete duplicates/overlapping/etc.