A DXF file is a list of all the co-ordinates, line types, colours, layers etc. found in an AUTOCAD drawing. In the manufacturing departments of industry the most important group of information in the DXF file are the X and Y co- ordinates.

The program DXF-XY reads all of the named .DXF file and filters out the X and Y information. This data is then saved to disk under another file name. It is sugested that you include an extension of .CO at the end of the output filename to represent co-ordinates.

When asked for a filename you must supply the full drive, path and filename plus any extension. If the requested file is not found or is illegal an error message is displayed and the program is terminated.

Background

When you are using AUTOCAD make a new layer called TOOLPATH on this layer place POINTS at all of the required change points. To do this set OSNAP to END or CEN then go round the profile using the command POINT. Now freeze all layers but TOOLPATH and save this layer as a DXF file.

Points have to be used in the drawing because in a DXF file they appear as straight X and Y setings. A line however has two ends one is X & Y the other end is shown as minor x & y. Arcs are saved as X & Y co-ords of the centre point minor x & y co-ords of the start point and the angular displacement of the end point. DXF-XY is a simple program and just looks for X & Y co-ords.

			   
			   
                
         Example 
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               DXF-XY           Start  the program. 
               
               TEST.DXF         The DXF file that it will read.
               
               TEST.CO          The filename for the new co-ords.

         The new co-ords will be listed on the screen, press any 
         key and you will see a picture of the data.