nanoCAD forum

Hi folks, I'm still very much a novice at cad but I'm using Nanocad (after binning the now useless Draftsight) to prepare 2D artwork for brass etching. Once I close and reopen a .dwg file, all the previously circular shapes and curves now appear to be made up of straight lines. If I copy and paste any of these shapes they are restored to their original smooth shape. Is this a fault I can deal with simply or do I have to redraw everything? The problem appears to be mostly with the fill function.

Before I send this artwork off to the etchers I need to know how it will appear to them as I don't want to waste money getting stuff etched if it's wrong.
Cheers
Jon F.

Also, if I copy and past a shape from one drawing to another it appears to become even worse now!

Hello,
there are two possible reasons:
1- the display has trouble producing a smooth image. What happens when you start a regeneration? (view> Regen). Rounding segmentation is a common solution for software in order to reduce the amount of calculation.
2 - Nanocad has trouble retrieving items from Draftsight. As a general rule: new software> new drawing. It's more reasonable, to avoid things that are difficult to transcribe between software. Software also has its idioms!

A file.dwg for example ?...

Regards
Patrick

Thanks for the reply. You are certainly right about Nanocad not liking my Draftsight drawings!
I experimented with the graphics settings on Nanocad and found the option to improve the compatability. Once selected, a regen smoothed out the curved surfaces and improved the look of the drawing, although I have to regen regularly to maintain the appearance of each drawing.
I guess I may have to re-draw some of my Draftsight generated etch artwork from scratch just to keep it workable in Nanocad as trying to "fill" some shapes proved very difficult .
Cheers
Jon F.