Exporting from Rhino to Adobe Illustrator

[Sophia_Smith]

I have used the following workflow for years and suddenly it isn’t working! See below:

Task: Exporting linework, dimensions, and leader notes from Rhino to Adobe Illustrator

Issue: When trying to open the .ai file in illustrator, I receive this error:

“Illustrator could partially read this file. We recovered as much as the file as possible, but some content might be missing. Open to view the recovered file”.

I had a coworker try exporting from his computer – while I did not receive the error, the file opened in illustrator and was scaled/stretched in one direction. I opened this .ai file in Rhino and it was not skewed.

When I turn off the layers that don’t have leader arrows or dim arrows, the workflow works fine. As soon as they turn on, the file seems to become corrupt. I have had no issue using this exact process in the past and have always been able to export text directly from rhino to .ai.

Does this seem like an illustrator issue, rhino issue, computer/graphics issue? Halp!
Millwork_Test_V1.3dm (5.7 MB)
Millwork_Test_V1.AI (1.3 MB)

Export Settings:

Illustrator View:

[dale (Dale Fugier)]

Hi @Sophia_Smith,

Try saving a PDF file from Rhin and opening that in Illustrator. Any better?

– Dale

[cdordoni]

I’m using the Windows version of v7. Even if I set the export scale to 0.01" = 12" the exported AI file is still too large to fit within Illustrator’s page size limit. It seems no matter how small it is scaled from Rhino its still ending up at approx 227" which exceeds the page size limit.

I can scale it down using Rhino’s scale tool but then that changes the dimension text size in relation to the objects.

[BTH]

flip the values you have set in the exporter. the exporter reads the first value as model units coming from rhino and the second value as units in illustrator.

so if you want a drawing that is 1" = 24", the first value should be 24, and the second value should be 1.

[cdordoni]

OMG, that’s so obvious now, but it goes against the convention, I mean typically one would expect that the scale specified would be the result (the print) or in this case the exported file.