Creating a DXF for sheet metal perforation from Photo or graphic

[Hallie31732609ohat]

Hello!  I am looking for a process that will allow me to take a graphic or photo and convert it into a dxf/dwg perforated pattern for sheet metal production.  I've attached images of the effect I'm looking for, and wondering if there is a process involving illustrator that would support this.  I have experimented with color halftone filters, but am wondering if there are ways to better control the sizing and spacing of the dots.  I would love to hear if other have worked on things like this and what approach has worked well!

[Bobby Henderson]

Astute Graphics has an Adobe Illustrator plugin called Phantasm which can generate vector-based halftone effects from pixel-based images or vector-based objects. The resulting vector halftones can then be exported in DXF/DWG format.

[Bobby Henderson]

To add to my suggestion about the Phantasm plugin, the rival CorelDRAW application has a pretty decent Pointillizer effect filter that does some of the same vector halftone effects as Phantasm, but with some different controls. It will literally let me map new vector objects 1 to 1 with each pixel in a sample image, which is handy for creating things like vector simulations of LED jumbotron displays.

[david25992372f16s]

I'm using Astute Phantasm for this purpose exactly but i can't seem control the sapce between each dot... using the dot grain function, but sometimes it place the dots too close to each other so it will fall off once the metal panel is cut.... does that make sense?

[femkeblanco]

Script-wise, it's easy in theory: Create a grid (2D array) of pixels, by iterating through so many pixels at a time, getting their positions and gray colors, then drawing circles at those positions with diameters proportional to the gray colors.

In practice, pixels need to be accessed throught Photoshop and the above requires at least one back-and-forth between Illustrator and Photoshop through BridgeTalk. My Photoshop and BridgeTalk experience is limited.