Imported PDF lines incomplete

[Peter29260580lhur]

Hi there. I'm currently working on a technical design that was created in a CAD program, exported as a PDF and I'm getting incomplete lines when I bring it into Illustrator. Appreciate any help on this.

[Monika Gause]

Are there many anchor points on that path?

[Peter29260580lhur]

No anchor points at all. It was a fresh import from the PDF

[John Mensinger]

A path cannot exist without at least 2 anchor points, so I'll assume you didn't understand the question.

I'm not a CAD operator, so my knowledge of it is limited, but I work with a lot of CAD-origin stuff. I see this from time to time, especially in cases where 'perspective' or perhaps other 2D CAD-based render-to-screen techniques have been applied. I suspect that cylindrical effect is borne of such a technique. The underlying, original CAD vectors are "stretched," figuratively speaking. They maintain the effect (and their perceivable integrity) in the native format, but it outside of the CAD environment, they break up as you see. It's possible there are unstroked anchors in those gaps. If you Select All (in Illustrator), you will see them, if they're there.

Otherwise, if you have access to the orginal, native file or the person who built it, there may be other ways to get around it.

[Peter29260580lhur]

I'm the original builder and have access to DXF/DWG and any file needed. There seems to be a line weight issue when exporting PDF. Either they are so thick that theres absolutely no detail to be had. Or when you disable line weights, it ends up like what you see in the screen shot. I've done some looking on fusion's forums and apparently this was told to be fixable in the future back in 2016 but never was. I'm currently trying to export the PDF's using another method involving manually chaning the line weights in "TrueView". God only knows if this will work. I was hoping Illustrator could be my savior and automatically connect these alias'ed lines. 

[John Mensinger]

God only knows if this will work.

Yes, it can be hard to sort out, and trial-and-error will inevitably occur. CAD exort to PDF could vary among applications, so it's a bit of a wildcard. I find that printing to PDF rather than exporting can deliver results much closer to what-you-see-is-what-it-gives. The most reliable app I've found for printing to PDF as a CAD-to-Illustrator bridge is Dassault Systems' eDrawings. There's a free viewer that opens a lot of 2D and 3D formats, and its Print dialog has a useful "Render edges to vector" option. I get a faithful and workable PDF at least 95% of the time.

[Peter29260580lhur]

That's great news thank you for your info on this!