Export by Industry and Machine Profiles

File › Export › Export… offers the formats for the drawing's industry first, and a machine profile sends the drawing to one machine in one click: its format, that format's options, the layer names, colours and pens the machine expects, the units, the folder and the file name, all saved under the machine's name. ParametrIQ CAD comes with profiles for the machines each trade uses, and you can make your own.

The formats offered for the drawing's industry

Each export format is for some industries: CF2 and DDES3 for packaging, labels, gaskets, foam and leather dies; G-code for sheet metal, HVAC, pipework, steel, carpentry, lasers, glass and stone; HP-GL for sample tables, sign and vinyl cutters, mat cutters and plotters; the newer formats for their trades (DSTV for structural steel, AAMA/ASTM DXF for sewing and leather, LightBurn for lasers …); and PDF, DXF, SVG, EPS, Illustrator and pictures for every industry.

File › Export › Export… lists, in its file types, the formats for the drawing's industry first, then those for every industry. The others are under File › Export › Export All Formats… (shown when the drawing has an industry), which lists every format with the drawing's own first, just as Edit › Tool › Show All Tools shows every industry's tools. With Show All Tools on, or for a General drawing, File › Export › Export… lists every format. File › Send by Email › Export All Formats… does the same for e-mail. Each format's own page is listed in File Formats.

Sending with a profile

File › Send Using Machine Profile lists the profiles for the drawing's industry (and those for every industry), each with its machine and format. Choose one and the drawing is exported straight away, nothing asked:

1. in the profile's format, with the profile's options (any option it doesn't give keeps the value you last used for that format);
2. with the drawing's layers named, coloured and penned as the profile says, only in the file: the drawing itself isn't changed;
3. into the profile's folder (made if it isn't there), under the profile's file name pattern. A profile without a folder asks for one the first time and keeps it. A file of the same name is replaced;
4. through the profile's post-processor, if it has one (Post-processors).

The messages say where the file was written. G-code, HP-GL and post-processor profiles still check the drawing against the design rules first.

Managing profiles

File › Extensions › Machine Profiles… (also at the foot of Send Using Machine Profile) lists the profiles for the drawing's industry; tick Show every industry's profiles for all of them. Each says its machine, its format, its industries and whether it comes with the app, is yours, or is one of the app's that you changed.

• Send exports the drawing with the profile chosen.
• New… makes a profile; Edit… (or a double click) changes one; Duplicate… makes a copy to change.
• Delete removes one of yours, or hides one of the app's.
• Restore the App's Profiles puts back the app's profiles as they come: your changes to them are dropped and those you deleted come back. Your own profiles are kept.

Profiles you make or change are kept with the app's settings on this computer.

A profile's settings

Layers

Each row says how a layer is written, and the first row that matches a layer is used:

• Drawing's layer: the layer's name, with * and ? as wildcards, in any case (Reg* for Registration Mark). The die-making layers also match their English names whatever the app's language (Cut, Crease, Partial Cut, Perforation, Tape, Dimension, Reverse Crease, Cut Crease, V-Cut); #3 matches the layer numbered 3. * alone matches every layer the rows above didn't.
• Name in file: the layer's name in the file (a DXF layer). Several layers can be given the same name.
• Colour: #RRGGBB, or an AutoCAD colour number 1 to 255 (1 red, 2 yellow, 3 green, 4 cyan, 5 blue, 6 magenta, 7 white or black). Used for a DXF's layer colours, HP-GL/2 pen colours and PDF or SVG strokes.
• Pen: the HP-GL pen (tool) the layer is plotted with. Layers without one keep their place in the layer list.
• Leave out: nothing on the layer is written, whatever the format: DXF, CF2, DDES3, DSTV NC and AAMA DXF files, PDF, EPS, PostScript, Illustrator, SVG and pictures (and the dieline, print-and-cut, tiled and projector PDFs made from them) leave its elements out altogether, so the file hasn't even an empty layer of that name; and the layer isn't plotted, so the machine formats (HP-GL, G-code, GP-GL, post-processors) leave it out too. It is left out only while the profile exports: the drawing's layers are as they were afterwards.

Add the Drawing's Layers adds a row for each of the drawing's layers that hasn't one.

Profiles that come with the app

Native formats of some machines (Zünd's and Kongsberg's own job formats, rule benders' native files, Wizard and Gunnar mat cutter files, ArtiosCAD .ard) aren't published, so these profiles use the documented routes the machines' own software imports: DXF, CF2, DDES3 and HP-GL, with the layer, colour and pen conventions it is set up with. Each profile's notes say what to set once on the machine's side: its tool or method table, layer by layer.

The industry pages say which are theirs: see Industries and Tool Sets.

Profiles in files

The app's profiles are JSON files in the Profiles folder of its Extensions folder. To share profiles, or keep them with your other extensions, put JSON files of the same shape in the Profiles folder of your own Extensions folder (File › Extensions › Open Extensions Folder): they are read with the app's, and a file of yours with the same name as one of the app's is read instead of it. A file holds a list of profiles, and may give the industries of those that don't say their own:

{
  "industries": ["Packaging"],
  "profiles": [
    {
      "id": "my-table",
      "name": "My sample table",
      "machine": "The table in bay 2",
      "format": "Dxf",
      "units": "mm",
      "options": { "version": "AC1015", "dimensions": false },
      "layers": [
        { "from": "Cut", "name": "KNIFE", "colour": 1 },
        { "from": "Crease", "name": "CREASE", "colour": 3 },
        { "from": "Dimension", "omit": true }
      ],
      "folder": "~/Cutting/Bay 2",
      "fileName": "{drawing}-{date}",
      "notes": "Map KNIFE and CREASE to the tools in the table's software."
    }
  ]
}

id must be unique and is made of letters, digits, dots, dashes and underscores; format is the format's name as the app knows it (Dxf, Cf2, Ddes, GCode, Hpgl, Hpgl2, Pdf, Eps, PostScript, Illustrator, Svg, Png, Jpeg, Webp, and the trades' formats such as Dstv, AamaDxf, LightBurn, MatCutterDxf, DielinePdf). The option keys are those each format's options page uses: the easiest way to get them is Choose Options… in a profile, then copy the lines. Comments (//) are allowed. A file that can't be read is said under the list in Machine Profiles….

See also: File Formats, Industries and Tool Sets, Post-processors, Preferences.