MetaDraw

DXF Support License Option

Optional .DXF Import and Export Support Licenses are available for MetaDraw allowing creation and reading of DXF format image files from a MetaDraw based application or web page.

DXF support is only available to customers purchasing the DXF filter license.

For evaluation purposes, potential users of DXF support may use the HSEditor Utility to Import and Export DXF files prior to purchasing a MetaDraw DXF Import or Export license.

AutoCad NOT required:

Note that installation of AutoCAD is not required for DXF support with MetaDraw.

Features and Limitations of the Optional DXF support:

DXF Import

MetaDraw DXF supports the reading of 2-d DXF files as generated by AutoCad

MetaDraw DXF recognizes the following DXF record types: POINT, LINE, MLINE, ARC, CIRCLE, ELLIPSE, TEXT, MTEXT, SOLID, XLINE, LEADER, POLYLINE, LWPOLYLINE, INSERT (BLOCK)

Support for other records may be added later. In particular the following records are NOT currently supported: TRACE, DIMENSION LINES, DIMENSION, HATCH, OLEFRAME, REGION.

VIEWPORTs and LAYOUTs are not supported. Only entities from 'MODEL' layout space will be imported.

MetaDraw recognizes the following DXF object attributes: Line Width, Color, Angle, and Extended Data (XDATA is represented as object tags in MetaDraw ). Line Type is not supported.

All text primitives are converted into text objects of the appropriate size using the default FontName setting for MetaDraw.

Text attributes (FontName, Bold, Italic, Underline) are recognized only for MTEXT records when reading a DXF file and only for entire text objects ( e.g. a bold word inside normal text will be ignored).

Point objects are interpreted as Line objects where the starting and ending points are the same.

Polylines are converted into a set of lines and arcs; Straight line segments will be converted to standard PolyLines objects. Curved lines will be converted to arcs.

Polygons are treated as Closed PolyLines.

All objects are recognized as Transparent (HATCH records are not supported).

All objects are represented as a single layer. Multi-layer environment is not supported. Frozen Layers are not supported.
      ** New for 2007 ** - MetaDraw now supports importing layers,
      layers are recognized as Group Countainers in MetaDraw
      and tagged with 'DXFLayer' objtag name.
      All inserted blocks are also represented
      as containers with ‘DXFBlock’ objtag name) )

DXF Export

MetaDraw provides two modes of DXF export support.

• "Draft" DXF files - These are basic DXF files compatible with most versions of AutoCAD. But objects in such DXF files can lose some attributes.
• "Enhanced" DXF files - In this mode ( compatible with AutoCAD version 14 and newers only ) MetaDraw makes use some of the newer features of DXF format to preserve the image as created in MetaDraw to the maximum extent possible.

Both Draft and Enhanced modes have the following limitations:

1. All MetaDraw objects (except Polyline and Polygon) have the same line width - 1 pixel;
2. The Line Style for all MetaDraw objects (except Polyline and Polygon) is always SOLID (DASH and DOTTED styles are not supported).
3. MetaDraw objects have no fill and are represented as TRANSPARENT (except Polygon);
4. MetaDraw does not support multiple layers in DXF file, so all objects are presented in one layer.
5. Grouping of objects (container definitions) are not preserved from the MetaDraw picture to DXF output. All MetaDraw containers will be ungrouped while exporting.
6. Colors of MetaDraw objects will be approximated to a nearest color in predefined color table (192 standard colors).
7. Bitmaps are ignored (they will be excluded from the saved file)
8. Links are converted to polyline objects (the nature of automatic link is not preserved)
9. HotSpot Information is not preserved on Export to DXF format, Neither are ObjVisible nor ObjURL properties.

The following features are available in the enhanced export mode only:

1. Filling of a polygon can be stored to a DXF file (solid colors only). In DXF file it is represented as a HATCH object;
2. Line width and style (DOTTED and DASHED) of a polygon/polyline can be stored in a DXF file;
3. The following text object attributes are stored in MTEXT record: FontName, FontBold, FontItalic, FontUnderlined. In Draft mode, MetaDraw only stores text size and rotation angle for text objects. All other text attributes (font names, bold, italic) will be lost.
4. All text objects will be stored as multi-line text (stored with their boundaries). In draft mode all MultiLine text objects will be converted to single line text objects in DXF format.