Illustrator chopping SolidWorks images?

[ana-H]

I'm working with another person, and they're supposed to create an object in SW and then send it to me to edit it in Illustrator. The thing is, when I received the .ai file from them and opened it, the image is chopped, missing half of it.

To give you an idea, the image is something akin to a ruler, much wider than it is tall. And when I open the file, it will only show me what fits inside a standard Illustrator workspace (say, from the 3in mark to the 8in) and everything else outright disappeared. The image imports as if it had a mask, but even disabling the mask does nothing. Is the error on my part or the other person's?

Please help me, I'm going crazy and we can't find a solution.

If it's any help, the object is around 13 inches, and on a 1:1 scale. They sent me another part of the project, in which the object is also on a 1:1 scale, but is smaller and that one opens just fine. Any ideas of what might be happening?

[Grant H]

I dont know much about SW but it sounds like a maximum artboard size? 13" is tiny still so i wonder if its something in the SW export to ai... ? Can they export it to an EPS or PDF? See how that works opening in AI.

[Eric Dumas]

HI,

Can you confirm the version of illustrator and the operating system you are using?

On the SW front, it might be a question of zooming out before saving. You can also use PDF's to open in illustrator. That might be a way to have better control on the extents of the design.

Please include screenshots if you are allowed.

[ana-H]

Thank you so much for your answer. It turned out the mistake was on the other person's end. Though in case I run into this problem again, they were using SW 2019 and at work we use Ai CS6 (why? beats me, really old PC's I guess).  Sadly, due to my office's policies, I cannot take screenshots. If it is any help, the file in question was sent to me in both .stl and .ai files (I know .stl is for 3D objects, we also needed the 3D version for someone to use on Blender, but that's another story). Only the .ai had problems.

[JETalmage · Accepted solution]

In SolidWorks, the 3D model itself is an entirely different thing from its 2D drawings which are generated from the model. SolidWorks doesn't export its models as .ai files, just its drawings.

The drawing creation interface has basic setups for things like sheet size, scale, etc. The SW user is probably just setting up something inappropriately in that regard. I'm presently working from a remote VPN, so don't want to run SolidWorks from here to check specifics.

The thing is; many (probably most) users of programs like SW have little to no experience with general purpose mainstream 2D print-centric drawing programs like Illustrator. There is an express command for exporting a drawing as a .ai file, but the actual 2D content (paths) is really no different from any other drawing export with which the user would likely be more familiar.

I'd try just asking the SW user to send you a .dxf file. You can open that in Illustrator and scale it there.

JET

[ana-H]

Sending it as a .dfx file worked just fine! Thank you so much.