Learn/Laser/Import & sheet layout
Vector import
Updated v2.5.5At a glance
- DXF and SVG with automatic contour chaining tuned for laser part extraction
- Every DXF import confirms source units and live size; ordinary and quantity imports offer Grid / Keep Placement
- SheetCAM `.job` import — migrate existing laser or plasma layouts without re-exporting geometry
- Preserve SheetCAM placement or import parts for JetCad3 nesting; inherit `[Work]` sheet size from the job
- Import flat sketches from Drafting — parts flag stale when the source changes and update on demand
The Laser workspace pulls geometry in through three buttons in the Parts section of the browser
panel: + From File for DXF, SVG, and SheetCAM .job files, plus + From Drafting and
+ From Design for flat geometry straight out of your JetCad3 models. The split-button dropdown
adds Set Each QTY... so you can assign a quantity to each part as it comes in.
DXF and SVG
Contour chaining is tuned for laser part extraction: every top-level closed contour in the file becomes a part, and everything it encloses — holes, islands, engrave regions, open contours — stays attached to that part instead of splintering into separate parts. Files with multiple top-level outlines still import as multiple parts, and you're asked whether to keep the file's original placement or drop everything into a clean grid layout. Splines and SVG curves are simplified using the active machine's simplify tolerance end-to-end, so imported geometry density follows your machine profile rather than a hard-coded value.
Units, size, quantities, and placement
Every DXF route — File → Import, drag-and-drop, + From File, and Set Each QTY… — asks you to confirm the familiar Inch / MM toggle before adding geometry. Inch and MM are JetCad3's two standards. A matching DXF declaration seeds the toggle; centimeter and meter declarations convert automatically through MM and seed MM. Missing, unitless, invalid, conflicting, or genuinely unsupported declarations fall back to Preferred Units and stay visibly flagged. Your final choice controls the scale.
The dialog shows the drawing's Width × Height in Preferred Units with the other unit system underneath. Changing source units updates both sizes immediately; spline-derived sizes are labeled Approx. SVG import is unchanged.
Ordinary imports offer Grid Layout / Keep Placement without quantity fields. Set Each QTY… adds per-part counts in the same dialog. Grid is the default. With one selected source file, Keep Placement preserves the first copies' relative arrangement at the confirmed scale. Extra copies and parts that do not fit a sheet go into staging; Keep Placement never starts auto-nesting. Multi-file imports keep independent units, warnings, and sizes and use Grid Layout.
SheetCAM jobs
Importing a .job file offers two options that are remembered for next time: Inherit Sheet
Dimensions reads the job's [Work] size into your sheet, and Preserve Part Nesting keeps
every part exactly where SheetCAM had it. Leave nesting off to bring the parts in loose and let
auto nesting lay them out instead. Microscopic artifacts from the
binary format are filtered out automatically. The importer is shared with Plasma — see
SheetCAM job import for the full rundown.
From Drafting and Design
Parts imported from a Drafting sketch or a Design model remember their source. When the source geometry changes, the affected parts are flagged stale and can be updated in place, so you can iterate on the drawing without rebuilding the laser job around it.