Educate me... How to "explode" text in Deltacad?

[Justin W]

Hello friends

I'm new to this forum and excited to be participating in discussions about my favorite topic.  I love the heck out of Deltacad and can't imagine life without it.  Thus far everything has been hunky dory but I just recently encountered an issue with which I need assistance.

I use Deltacad to create DXF drawings which I open in Fusion 360 and extrude/revolve sketch profiles into solid bodies to send to a 3D printer.

A recent design featured some text which I also need to be able to use as a sketch profile in Fusion 360 - the text needs to be cut into the surface of the body I will ultimately create.  This means the text needs to be - I guess? - made up of lines and curves that I can select and use.

When I imported the Deltacad DXF into Fusion, all the text was gone.  

Please help me figure out how to turn Deltacad text into splines and lines that other programs will recognize as usable.  Some research on the matter informs me that there is a process called "exploding" text that will turn text into entities other programs can use.

Thanks in advance  

[AlwMVMO]

Here is how to Change (Convert) text to Lines or Arcs.

 1. Click on the Edit tab
 2. Click on the Edit Object Data box if it is not already selected.
 3. Click on the Text to convert.
 4. Select [Convert to Lines] or [Convert to Arcs] on the right side of the Edit Text screen.
     [Convert to Lines] will ask for "Choose the number of line segments to create for each curve segment." 1, 2, 4, 8, 16

But there one thing that might not work for you is that it creates what I would call "Hollow" text.

Top text converted text to lines
Bottom text is original

   

You should put your text off to one side to experiment, use UNDO to change it back to the original text if it doesn't look right.
I don't know if there is a font that only produces a single line text after convert.
You might have to send Midnight Software a message asking if there is a way to do that.

[Justin W]

(07-19-2020, 05:33 PM)AlwMVMO Wrote: Here is how to Change (Convert) text to Lines or Arcs.

 1. Click on the Edit tab
 2. Click on the Edit Object Data box if it is not already selected.
 3. Click on the Text to convert.
 4. Select [Convert to Lines] or [Convert to Arcs] on the right side of the Edit Text screen.
     [Convert to Lines] will ask for "Choose the number of line segments to create for each curve segment." 1, 2, 4, 8, 16

But there one thing that might not work for you is that it creates what I would call "Hollow" text.

Top text converted text to lines
Bottom text is original



You should put your text off to one side to experiment, use UNDO to change it back to the original text if it doesn't look right.
I don't know if there is a font that only produces a single line text after convert.
You might have to send Midnight Software a message asking if there is a way to do that.

I am very excited - dare I say thrilled - to find out this is possible!

Thank you very very much for your helpful reply  

Hero status:  Achieved

[williamj]

OoooHhhhh.... AL... My Hero !!!!  

Good job Al, good job.  

[Justin W]

It works out that the "hollow" text is perfect for extruding in Fusion. Each letter becomes a perfect tiny tool - as though one had spent days zoomed in to near nanometer scale, meticulously tracing the outline of each letter.

Just a quick note for any future readers encountering this post because they had the same question as me:

Once you've converted your text to lines, it might look like an incoherent blob.

Simple select all of the converted text and toggle the line weight to "thin". All at once, your text becomes crisp and perfect once again

[AlwMVMO]

You can also set your Line thickness to Thin before you convert.

And if you go to Options in the Menu and select Drawing Data . . . and change the Line Thickness/Thin to .001 it will be thinner yet.