IGEMS File format summary

This document outlines the file formats that can be opened in IGEMS along with some comments for each.

*.DIG (IGEMS Drawing)

This is IGEMS own file format since R10. This file format is an open XML format, however IGEMS do not provide documentation to the public for it.

*.ISF (IGEMS Support file)

This is an internal IGEMS format that can be generated with the support/save functionality from within IGEMS. This is a package (actually a zip file) containing the DIG file itself together with material and machine setup and some basic information about the computer that generated the file. This file format is a tool for IGEMS support to more swiftly solve bug reports.

*.ACD (Deprecated IGEMS format)

File format used in IGEMS R3 up until IGEMS R9. In older IGEMS, all parts were actually blocks. When opening an *.acd file, such blocks are converted to real part objects. Surprisingly *.acd files are not 100% supported when it comes to parts. This is due to changes how parts are stored internally. However, most users will never notice the minor issues when importing this kind of file, but one should watch imported parts closely before using them in real life.

*.DXF, *.DWG (AutoDesk)

File format used by many CAD systems to exchange data. This is actually a format capable of storing 3d objects, but due to the 2D nature of IGEMS, several limitations exists. IGEMS imports only objects from the modelspace block of this kind of drawings. Paperspace objects are ignored. At date of writing DWG/DXF files versioned from R12 up until R2015 are supported.

The following object types are concidered when opening this kind of file:

• CIRCLE
• ARC
• LINE
• LWPOLYLINE

• POLYLINE
• Only line type POLYLINE:s are supported. Spline fitted polylines and other subtypes are ignored.

• DIMENSION
• Exploded when imported to look the same way they did in the original CAD system.
• Be aware that due to settings and overrides in original CAD system, the dimension does not neccisarily show the actual measurement.

• PROXY_OBJECTS
• Shown only if they contain a graphical representation.
• Is exploded to atomic entities, where each subentity needs to be in this list to be shown.

• SPLINE
• Is approximated with a polyline because IGEMS splines is not the same kind that splines in this file format.

• TEXT
• Size of IGEMS text font do not usually match the size of the text font in the original CAD system, thus the text might be a little misplaced. However, insertion point should be correct.
• Style of the drawing is not considered. The text object always gets ISO-CP font.

• MTEXT
• Same limitations a ordinary TEXT objects.

Insert

Point

3D polyline

Only common line-style polylines supported. Mesh-fitted and other variants are ignored.

• HATCH
• Patterns that cannot be directly supported by IGEMS, for example the predefined stars and bricks, are exploded to atomic entities and inserted as an INSERT.

ELLIPSE

If objects not in this list are encountered, IGEMS try to explode them to more simple entities and then try to recursivly match them to this list to a maximum of 5 levels depth. Since this file format is a 3d file format and IGEMS is a 2d system, objects that do not reside in the xy-plane are projected to this plane and inserted as the projected object. Note that .DWG files that are actually Inventor files internally are not supported. Also note that many systems saving DXF and DWG files do not fully follow the standard for such files, thus the only files guaranteed to work are thoose saved by Autodesk products.

*.WMF (Microsoft windows metafile)

[Requires Data exchange module]

Support for original metafile format from Microsoft. There are several unsupported objects, however files containing such objects are still to be found. The file needs to contain the 'Aldus placable metafile header', which all files we have found so far do.

*.PS, *.EPS (Adobe postscript)

[Requires Data exchange module]

Implements basic postscript language support. Postscript can be divided into three levels of functionality:

• Level 1
  The original release of the postscript language by Adobe in 1984 (supported by IGEMS)
• Level 2
  Released by Adobe in 1991 (Partially supported by IGEMS)
• Level 3
  Released by Adobe in 1998 (Not supported by IGEMS)

If the postscript program queries the interpreter about it's version, Level1 will be reported, thus postscript files that support multiple levels will be interpreted as a Level1 file. Some features of Level2 is implemented, making a lot more files to be openable in IGEMS. Note that the intention of postscript is to generate graphics in a printers raster heap, thus some features cannot be supported when importing to a CAD system such as IGEMS. This include, but is not limited to, line widths of constant width (lines that looks wider when zooming in the CAD), glyph bitmap caching and various pixel operations.

*.HPG, *.PLT (Hewlet Packard plotter data)

[Requires Data exchange module]

Opening this kind of file extracts linear and circular movements from files originally designed for HP plotters.

*.IGS (IGES)

[Requires Data exchange module]

IGES files are full-fledged 3d exchage data files. As a 2D CAD system there is still a lot of information that could potentially be extracted from such files, because a subset of the IGES specification is pure 2D objects. When opening this filetype in IGEMS, objects not beeing in the XY-plane are projected to it. If there are multiple view objects stored in the file, IGEMS uses the first one. If there is no view objects in the file, IGEMS will generate a default one automatically. The following object types are supported:

Type100: Circular arc
Type102: Composite curve
Type104: Conic arc
Type106: Multiple lines/points (includes polylines)
Type110: Line
Type112: Parametric spline
Type116: Point
Type124: Matrix
Type126: Rational BSpline
Type212: General note
Type314: Color
Type404: Drawing
Type410: View

All other objects in an IGES file will be reported as a list of unsupported entity type numbers when the file is opened. The meaning of thoose numbers can be found in the open IGES specification. Note that each object type can have subtypes, for example Type106 has 106:1 (points), 106:2 (xyz point cloud), 106:12 (3d polyline) and many more. IGEMS do not support all subtypes of  the object in the list above, but a subset that seems reasonable for opening in a 2D environment.

*.GEO (TOPS), *.TRG(TOPS), *.GEN(TRIBON), *.MEK(Lantek), *.ORD (Flow), *.TAG (Taglio)

[Requires Data exchange module]

Thoose are files from other systems which are reverse engineered to be partially supported by IGEMS. IGEMS tries to extract basic lines and arcs only from this kind of files, no cutting parmeter data or other information is imported. Thoose file formats might or might not work to open in IGEMS because they are undocumented and not under IGEMS control.