Vector import

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.

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. Set Each QTY… also offers an independent Inch / MM choice for every SVG file, including multiple SVGs and mixed SVG/DXF batches. SVG choices start from Preferred Units and apply to all parts from that file. Large batches open with the first unit controls in view.

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 QTY imports keep independent unit choices and use Grid Layout; DXFs also retain their unit warnings and size previews.

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.

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.