Adobe Illustrator with .dwg ...

[umop-3p!sdn]

Has anyone ever had issues with DWGs made in or edited by Illustrator?

Sometimes it works perfectly ... other times it all but crashes the puter ...
Maybe I am missing a setting, maybe it just doesn't like the way Ill. marks the code up ...

Any ideas?
I love Illustrator, and have been avoiding certain drawing methods because of my fear of this.

[rkmcswain]

How are you opening these drawings in AutoCAD?

Use RECOVER if you are not currently.

[cadmuska]

what is illustrator?

[rkmcswain]

what is illustrator?

http://www.adobe.com/products/illustrator/

[f700es]

Has anyone ever had issues with DWGs made in or edited by Illustrator?

Sometimes it works perfectly ... other times it all but crashes the puter ...
Maybe I am missing a setting, maybe it just doesn't like the way Ill. marks the code up ...

Any ideas?
I love Illustrator, and have been avoiding certain drawing methods because of my fear of this.

The only time I do is if it is some funky fill pattern or if the Illustrator font was not converted to a path before exporting. I have yet to have one crash the PC I was working on though. For me, it's usually Illustrator that has the problem with the DWG code.
Crashing the computer sounds like a hardware issue to me.

[umop-3p!sdn]

Illustrator can save-as DWG. Very useful ...
I can run a PDF through Ill and save as dwg. I can bring CAD stuff into a graphical layout. I've even used it to make some ancient looking plans from sets made in ACAD ... it's a great companion. It's also great for the "drawing" feel with some things. I like whipping out primitives in Ill. and then bringing them into CAd for the fine tuning etc.

Now that Adobe baught Macromedia [makers of Flash/Shockwave] the world of vector art is pretty much theirs. I guess that's a good thing, they have great products.

I only had these issues with it when I had curves ... odd as it may sound.
I've opened the files before on others computers and the same lag occurs. It doesn't crash the machine, it just sends the cycles through the roof. It maxxes the CPU almost instantly then takes up to a couple of hours to work it out. Killing processes can bring it back out, which would imply that it it is a very wide memory leak. Most likely I would guess CAD is trying to calculate something nuts that makes no sense to it ... it always seems to happen when the "mouse-over" part of the window manager is changing from the CMD line to the modelspace ... and always WITH OSNAP on .... as if maybe there are millions of points for it to snap to or something ... I dunno .. these are just guesses.
I was just wondering if anyone else had this. Luckily it only happens every few times ... so I can still noodle and see if I caused it somehow.

I recommend anyone who can get even an LE version or trial to do so ... it is a great program for some of the simpler demands you might have in drawings. Logos, symbols, stylized primitives ..
Although I guess I DID just make it sound like a crappy program ... hehe

[f700es]

All good points umop. Yes Illustrator makes for a great companion to CAD. Yes it can be quite costly there are alternatives..
1. Macromedia Freehand (although as you said recently bought by Adobe).
2. Corel Draw - older versions can be had for a fraction of their original cost. I bought v8 for $15 and it can also open dwg, dxf and PDF files. I will say that it is no where near as reliable at opening these files as Illustrator is.
There are a few freeware/opensource applications that are very similar to what Illustrator and Draw are. They are not as robust or as feature laden but they have a good foot hold on what they want to accomplish.

Inkscape - http://www.inkscape.org/
Good program but no real easy way to import a CAD file. I have had success with using GhostView to convert a cad file to a svg file (inkscape's native format).

SodiPodi - http://www.sodipodi.com/index.php3
Much like InkScape.
Both are still in early stages of development, neither is at a 1.0 release yet.