Positioning vectors from multiple drawingsprecisely together

[MogulTx]

I have been working on taking some vectors and putting them into layers in a CAD program, so that I would know that they were precisely on top of one another. The reason is that they are being made from the same material and I need to make end cuts on them.

So I figured I would create a file with all the layers I needed ( 3 layers tonight- 5 more tomorrow) to do about 48 pieces or 96 angled cuts.

To position them, it was my intent to create a pocket to set the material into and then it would always register at the "0" end of the table, inside the pocket.

My problem: I put all the parts into a single CAD drawing in different layers, and exported it to a DXF. When I open in Aspire (4.5) I can only see 2 layers. I go to the "layers" tab... no joy... only the outline of the pocket and the first or second layer ( I forget which one). There is obviously something I am missing here- so can anyone recall a scenario where you were trying to import a dxf and w layers and it would not show the additional layers? If so, is there a way to address this?

Thanks!

Monty

( yes. I am going to import it as a DWG and see if it changes anything. Then I am going looking for a tutorial on layers- specifically the importing of layers.... but any assistance you guys can bring to this, would be appreciated. One other way I can think of to do this is to start an Aspire file and then load layers into it by importing them and trying to ASSIGN each bit to a layer and then moving it into place... this was done in CAD because I had better controls ( more visible and easily quantifiable) on placement. But maybe it is something that has to be done in aspire. I have tried fiddling with layers once or twice before and did not get where I wanted to go, unfortunately.) TIA.

[MogulTx]

Well- I didn't figure out how to import the pieces into Aspire and have them all show up neatly in the file for tool pathing- but the manual process of importing, grouping and then positioning seems to work pretty well.... got the three drawings set up for tonight. Won't fiddle with cut files this late- just asking for trouble.... but will do double duty tomorrow night to get them all tool pathed and then cut.

If one of you more brilliant people can shed light on my dark path- please feel free to do so! I have a working solution, but I am betting it is not the "elegant" solution!

Thanks!

Monty

[chiloquinruss]

I'm not on the long list of 'brilliant people' on this forum. I use the very basic of system that is based on the ever popular 'KISS' method. If coming from some other cad type software and trying to marry the parts in Aspire, I find it much easier in the 'other' software to hide all the layers except for one and then export it, then continue to hide and export each layer. In Aspire I then simply do the opposite, that is INPUT each file as a separate layer in Aspire and then do the manipulating there. I'm sure there are many other ways to accomplish the same result and the great folks here will teach us all. In the mean time, glad you got a satisfactory result with your method. Russ

[Brady Watson]

^^^^^
What he said...

...and DWG import with layer names etc

-B

[scottp55]

Monty,
May not help you, and you probably already know all this, but I use automatic vector selection by layer and associate the toolpath all the time(Thanks Adrian).
Here's a tutorial starting with importing a .dxf and the associating toolpath by layer that helped me grasp it.
http://www.vectric.org/video/aspire3...templates.html
Good luck and sorry if you knew all this,
scott