When I try to import a .dxf sourced from KiCad into FreeCad (via Kicad StepUp or natively), FreeCad complains about the ACAD version and won’t load it. If I run the .dxf in/out through another tool (like InkScape), then the .dxf will go into FreeCad AOK.
Looking into the difference, I find the .dxf that go in AOK have header $ACADVER and the Kicad .dxf doesn’t. If I just edit the Kicad sourced file to include the $ACADVER entry, then all is well.
I was running FreeCad 0.21.1 With Kicad V7.0.10. I also tried KiCad V8 RC2 from a few weeks ago with the same result.
Here’s what FreeCad says:
18:49:54 There has been an error:
18:49:54 Unable to identify DXF file version
If I edit the dxf from Kicad to add:
$ACADVER
1
then FreeCad imports it AOK. I’ll upgrade FreeCad to 0.21.2 and report back.
Edit: I tried FreeCad 0.21.2 and I get the same result:
19:16:05 There has been an error:
19:16:05 Unable to identify DXF file version
Wondering why it works for others, I poked around a bit in FreeCad Import/Export preferences and found that if I uncheck the default “Use legacy python importer” then it seems to work fine. It looks like its the legacy python importer in FreeCad that has a problem with Kicad dxf not having an entry for ACADVER.
Thanks for all of your help in helping me not having to edit dxf files from Kicad.
Thanks again and my apologies for not finding this as a known issue. Indeed replacing the dxfReader.py FreeCad file with the latest one from ~5 months ago resolves the issue with “somewhat non-standard” .dxf files.