DXF Output Profiles - CADshift Docs

An Output Profile owns how the DXF looks. DXF Export owns what gets exported and what it is called.

A profile decides which layer every kind of geometry lands on and that layer’s name, colour, linetype and visibility; the bend-label text; etched marking; contour cleanup; flat-pattern orientation; opposite-hand copies; spline handling; and the DXF version, units, angle convention and precision.

One profile applies to a whole run and is summarised on a single line under the picker, for example mm · R2000 · trim bends, laser clean-up, bounding box, etch text, bend labels.

Opening the editor

Profiles are edited only from inside the DXF Export window: the Profile dropdown in the header, and the gear beside it (“Edit profiles…”). There is no ribbon or Settings entry.

Profiles are shared with CADshift for SOLIDWORKS

Profiles live in %AppData%\CadShift\DxfProfiles, one JSON file per profile, named by a stable id so renaming a profile never orphans its file.

Both CADshift products read that folder, so a profile written on a SOLIDWORKS seat drives an Inventor seat unchanged, and vice versa. Only the active profile pointer is per product, so each product remembers its own last choice.

The editor

Five panes: the profiles list, the Settings rail, the detail pane, and a live Sample DXF preview that redraws as you change things.

The rail has ten entries: General, Layers, Bend annotation, Bend lines, Placement & Orientation, Opposite Hand Creation, Splines, Contour cleanup, Etch text, Output. It opens on Layers.

Buttons: New, Clone, Delete, Import…, Export…. A radio button marks the active profile.

Two built-in presets ship: Generic — Metric and Generic — Imperial. They are read-only. Select one and click New or Clone to get an editable copy called Copy of ….

Use Export… and Import… to hand a shop profile to a colleague.

Layers

Routing every kind of geometry to the layer your CAM expects, then reading the result back in AutoCAD.

The layer table has fifteen rows with four columns: Layer Name, Visible, Color, Line type.

Colour is an AutoCAD Color Index picker. Linetypes offered are CONTINUOUS, DASHED, DASHED2, CENTER and PHANTOM.

Default layer names:

OUTER · HOLES · TAPPED · SLOTS · CUTOUTS · COUNTERSINK · BEND_UP (dashed) · BEND_DOWN (dashed) · BEND_TEXT · FORMING · ETCH · GRAIN · INSERTS · HIDDEN_EDGE (dashed) · BOUNDING_BOX · SKETCH · NOTES

Two categories are deliberately absent from the table. Tapped holes cannot be told apart from clearance holes once the geometry is in a DXF, and countersink rings follow the Hidden edges layer.

What each tier includes

Free and Basic seats can edit: General, the ungated layer rows, “Flip flat pattern so most up-bends face up”, and everything under Output and precision.

Professional unlocks, each with its own banner in the editor:

Bend annotation — bend labels beside each bend line
Bend-line trimming — the flip stays free; the trimming does not
Placement & Orientation — the rule that turns the flat pattern
Opposite Hand Creation
Contour cleanup — laser-cut optimisation
Etch text
The Etch / engrave and Bend annotations layer rows

Whatever your seat skips is named in the run. Each skipped step appears on its row in the preview and in the HTML report as “Bend annotations needs CadShift Professional”, so you never have to work out what a Basic file is missing by comparing it against a Professional one.

Bend annotations — Professional

Building the template from tokens, and what the bend lines carry afterwards.

Writes the profile’s template as text beside each bend line. Tokens:

Token	Meaning
`{id}`	Bend number
`{angle}`	Bend angle
`{dir}`	Up or down
`{radius}`	Inside bend radius
`{ba}`	Bend allowance
`{bd}`	Bend deduction
`{kfactor}`	K-factor
`{thickness}`	Material thickness
`{length}`	Bend length

Angle, radius, K-factor and thickness come from Inventor’s own flat-pattern bend results. Bend allowance and deduction are the only derived values, computed from Inventor’s documented unfold relations.

Etch text — Professional

Marking each part with its own part number and thickness.

Renders the token template and places it on the part face in the largest clear rectangle that avoids the outline, every interior cut, reference rings and bend lines. If it will not fit at the profile’s maximum height it shrinks toward the minimum height before giving up.

Uses the same token vocabulary as the file name.

Contour cleanup — Professional

A countersunk hole, and what happens to the ring around it.

Builds the contour containment tree and removes or hides redundant nested contours, so the cutter cuts only what it should. Optional endpoint welding closes tiny gaps first.

Opposite-hand copies — Professional

Left and right hand written from one model.

Writes the left/right twin of every DXF from one part file, instead of you duplicating and mirroring the model.

The convention matters: the outline mirrors and the bend directions stay. A bend that folds up still folds up. The earlier mirror-and-swap convention cancelled itself out into the same-hand part rotated, with every bend marked backwards.

The notes block is deleted and re-placed against the mirrored geometry, and the origin is re-snapped. Copies appear as their own rows in the preview, marked “Opposite-hand copy”, and get their own report and ZIP entries.

Option: Skip parts that have no bend lines, since a flat plate has no hand.

Bend-line trimming — Professional

Cutting bend lines back to a stub at each edge, so the fold is marked without scoring the face.

A bend line that runs the full width of the flat pattern marks the fold and leaves a score across a visible face. Trimming leaves a short stub at each edge instead — you choose which bends are trimmed (up, down or both) and how long the stub is. It only affects bend lines the profile actually exports.

Splines

Converting curves to line segments, held to a tolerance you choose.

Curved features leave Inventor as splines. Conversion replaces each one with closely spaced straight segments, to a maximum deviation you set, for controllers and nesting software that would rather not see a spline. Included from Basic.

Part notes and the material bounding box

Writing what the part is beside the geometry, and drawing the stock it needs.

The notes block is built from the same tokens as the file name and lands on its own layer, so downstream software can show it, ignore it or strip it. The material bounding box — axis aligned, minimum area, or both — draws the rectangle the notes describe, and is Professional.

Included at every tier

These run for anyone who has DXF export, and are not Professional:

routing holes, slots and cut-outs onto their own layers — the split Inventor’s own translator cannot make, and the reason to route layers at all
the grain arrow, when the part carries a grain mark
the part-notes text block
layer colour, linetype and visibility styling
spline-to-line conversion
snapping the part’s origin to (0,0)

The rule that turns the flat pattern — longest bend along X, longest edge along X, or grain along X — is Professional. Marking the grain edge and getting the arrow into the DXF is not, so a Basic seat can still see the direction and act on it.

DXF version

R2000 (default), R2004, R2007, R2010, R2013 and R2018.

Getting R12 out

R12, R13 and R14 are missing from the list because CADshift’s DXF engine cannot write them.

There is an escape hatch. When your profile asks for nothing that needs rewriting, Inventor’s own translator produces the file directly and R12 becomes available. Anything that forces CADshift to rewrite the file removes it: any Professional output option, the holes/slots/cutouts split, the mirrored copy, the notes block, the bounding box, or a grain mark. The failure message tells you which.

That matters because R12 is what older controllers often want.