sonnet dxf export and altium

is there some trick to exporting a dxf file from Sonnet and get Altium to read it? Special settings? Box size vs circuit size? etc

I have tried, and it seemed to work....right up to the point where the layout guy said it died while inputing it to Altium.

biff44 said:

....right up to the point where the layout guy said it died while inputing it to Altium.

Click to expand...

Do you have a more exact error message?

The Sonnet rectangles are polygons are exported as DXF POLYLINE objects. These POLYLINE are closed and have zero width. If there is a cutout in a polygon, the POLYLINE might be self-intersecting, which can cause trouble in some target systems.

Here is what Atium PCB layout program said when we tried to load the DXF file generated by sonnet liteplus:



Time

:

8:42:21 AM



Elapsed Time

:

00:00:02



PCB Filename

:

PCB1.PcbDoc



DXF Filename

:

C:\Users\Bob\Downloads\Ant_303 FINAL ARTWORK TRY 2.dxf


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CIRCLE entity was discarded because of invalid centre point (587.5,987.5)
LWPOLYLINE entity was discarded because of invalid vertex coordinates (475,1225)
LWPOLYLINE entity was discarded because of invalid vertex coordinates (575,1225)
LWPOLYLINE entity was discarded because of invalid vertex coordinates (575,900)
LWPOLYLINE entity was discarded because of invalid vertex coordinates (575,1025)
LWPOLYLINE entity was discarded because of invalid vertex coordinates (425,950)
LWPOLYLINE entity was discarded because of invalid vertex coordinates (425,1225)
LWPOLYLINE entity was discarded because of invalid vertex coordinates (574.999395,1049.9998)
LWPOLYLINE entity was discarded because of invalid vertex coordinates (574.999395,950.0003)
LWPOLYLINE entity was discarded because of invalid vertex coordinates (399.999074,1224.99951)
LWPOLYLINE entity was discarded because of invalid vertex coordinates (399.998937,775.0001)
LWPOLYLINE entity was discarded because of invalid vertex coordinates (75,1925)
LWPOLYLINE entity was discarded because of invalid vertex coordinates (1000.000077,1774.99973)
LWPOLYLINE entity was discarded because of invalid vertex coordinates (75,1774.99973)
LWPOLYLINE entity was discarded because of invalid vertex coordinates (75,199.99994)
CIRCLE entity was discarded because of invalid centre point (149.999488,1849.999661)
CIRCLE entity was discarded because of invalid centre point (274.999488,1849.999661)
CIRCLE entity was discarded because of invalid centre point (399.999488,1849.999661)
CIRCLE entity was discarded because of invalid centre point (524.999488,1849.999661)
CIRCLE entity was discarded because of invalid centre point (674.999488,1849.999661)
CIRCLE entity was discarded because of invalid centre point (799.999488,1849.999661)
CIRCLE entity was discarded because of invalid centre point (949.999488,1849.999661)
CIRCLE entity was discarded because of invalid centre point (1074.999488,1849.999661)
CIRCLE entity was discarded because of invalid centre point (1074.999488,1724.99966)
CIRCLE entity was discarded because of invalid centre point (274.999488,124.99966)
CIRCLE entity was discarded because of invalid centre point (399.999488,124.99966)
CIRCLE entity was discarded because of invalid centre point (524.999488,124.99966)
CIRCLE entity was discarded because of invalid centre point (674.999488,124.99966)
CIRCLE entity was discarded because of invalid centre point (799.999488,124.99966)
CIRCLE entity was discarded because of invalid centre point (949.999488,124.99966)
CIRCLE entity was discarded because of invalid centre point (1074.999488,124.99966)
CIRCLE entity was discarded because of invalid centre point (1074.999488,1599.99966)
CIRCLE entity was discarded because of invalid centre point (1074.999488,1474.99966)
CIRCLE entity was discarded because of invalid centre point (1074.999488,1349.99966)
CIRCLE entity was discarded because of invalid centre point (1074.999488,1224.99966)
CIRCLE entity was discarded because of invalid centre point (1074.999488,1099.99966)
CIRCLE entity was discarded because of invalid centre point (1074.999488,974.99966)
CIRCLE entity was discarded because of invalid centre point (1074.999488,849.99966)
CIRCLE entity was discarded because of invalid centre point (1074.999488,724.99966)
CIRCLE entity was discarded because of invalid centre point (1074.999488,599.99966)
CIRCLE entity was discarded because of invalid centre point (1074.999488,474.99966)
CIRCLE entity was discarded because of invalid centre point (1074.999488,349.99966)
CIRCLE entity was discarded because of invalid centre point (1074.999488,224.99966)
CIRCLE entity was discarded because of invalid centre point (149.999488,1724.99966)
CIRCLE entity was discarded because of invalid centre point (149.999488,124.99966)
CIRCLE entity was discarded because of invalid centre point (149.999488,1599.99966)
CIRCLE entity was discarded because of invalid centre point (149.999488,1474.99966)
CIRCLE entity was discarded because of invalid centre point (149.999488,1349.99966)
CIRCLE entity was discarded because of invalid centre point (149.999488,1224.99966)
CIRCLE entity was discarded because of invalid centre point (149.999488,1099.99966)
CIRCLE entity was discarded because of invalid centre point (149.999488,974.99966)
CIRCLE entity was discarded because of invalid centre point (149.999488,849.99966)
CIRCLE entity was discarded because of invalid centre point (149.999488,724.99966)
CIRCLE entity was discarded because of invalid centre point (149.999488,599.99966)
CIRCLE entity was discarded because of invalid centre point (149.999488,474.99966)
CIRCLE entity was discarded because of invalid centre point (149.999488,349.99966)
CIRCLE entity was discarded because of invalid centre point (149.999488,224.99966)

I am not using Sonnet with Altium, but here is an educated guess: "invalid coordinates" might indicate that the imported data is outside the valid PCB area. One reason might be units - DXF is numbers without a unit, so you have to make sure that the unit in Sonnet (Circuit > Units) agrees with the unit in Altium.

Thanks, I will check that.

I usually open the dxf with autocad or solidworks and save it as a new dxf, after that it can be imported to Altium