DXF Import and Layers - 5 in ACad results in 1 in LB?

[ame (Andrew)]

@richard.wildey

Thank you for the email. Once I realized that “color = layer” in Lightburn and assigned colors to all the layers in AutoCAD it imported no problem. I managed to accomplish my goal but I’m wondering if there is a “sensible” or “correct” way of doing it? I was a bit “by gosh and by golly” when selecting colors.

I feel the same way, and I have been discussing it here:

Importing DXF (padding, padding, title must be at least 15 characters)

Hello, I’ve just started using LightBurn and I have noticed two issues that would be excellent if they were fixed. Even more excellent if I’ve misunderstood something and the issues simply disappear. First, when importing a DXF, LightBurn does not seem to preserve layer names from my DXF file. It is much more convenient for me to do my CAD in other software and import the final design as a DXF. It is also more convenient for me to assign layers in my CAD software, then in LightBurn assign cutt…

Basically, your layers in DXF are ignored, and new layers based on colours are created. Ironically these new layers have names too: C00, C01, etc.

I think that is absolutely the wrong way to do it, and I am suggesting instead that elements should be grouped into layers by name, and possibly that operations should be defined by colour. (And therefore several layers could have the same colour if the same laser operation is being performed).

However, colour is not (and shouldn’t be) important, it’s just a convenience. The laser operation is just a property of the layer. Assigning meaning to the colour, or rather, insisting that the colour is the way to distinguish between layers when layers already have names is, in my opinion, wrong.