Down with DXF!

A post for industry nerds.




I'm beta testing Accumark V10 which will be released to the public soon. We have been using V8 and a lot of the major interface changes were made in V9 so there are a lot of big changes for me. But I just came across the most exciting new feature.

In the past, in order to share files between systems like Lectra and Gerber one had to convert files to .dxf (drawing exchange format) first then reconverted to native format on the new platform. The process was long, somewhat painful, and buggy. Data like floating notches and internal lines and drills were usually lost.

A friend just texted me to ask if I could open a pattern for him. Not a problem, if it was Gerber. It's .MDL, he said. Groan. That's Lectra, which would normally have been the end of the conversation unless he went back to the originator and asked them to convert it to .dxf, then I would have to reconvert it to Gerber format in order to open it. I couldn't find the V10 conversion utility since the new interface is very different so I shot an email to my contact at Gerber.

"You can open a Lectra mdl directly in PDS or plx in EasyMarking. (File Type drop down, select the lectra file format). You can also use the Data Conversion utility to convert a group of data if you just wanted to convert a lot at once. DCU is found in the AM Explorer Ribbon on the Process Tab.

Hope this helps,"


Hope this helps? It would be bloody miraculous, if true. I had my doubts. So I opened PDS, navigated to the folder and found the Lectra model. Then opened it directly, with grading intact. No more conversion, no more .dxf! Finally!