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Export 2d View command misses arcs, deactivates constraints (by Paul Milenkovic)
I am encountering missing arcs in circles in the graphics files generated by the Export 2d View command. This command also has a side effect of deactivating constraints between linked parts.

The attached .zip file contains my 3d model of a 6-axis industrial robot named Robot. It took me about 2 days to generate this model using SolveSpace for the first time. I am pleased with the user interface apart from the procedure for locating drawing planes requiring effort for me to learn in relation to my prior experience with SolidWorks and NX.

This model is assembled from the part files RobotBase, RobotShoulder, RobotArm, RobotForearm, RobotWristRoll, RobotWristYaw and RobotPointer. All of these .slvs files are included in the attached zip file. My goal is to generate line drawings (wireframe with hidden lines not visible) of this robot in various postures for the purpose of technical illustration of path planning algorithms. The attached files show the robot in its initial posture.

What is happening is that some of the circles in the 2d drawing have missing arcs. These circles are edges of extrusions I created to represent robot joints. Furthermore after applying the Export 2d View command to generate a drawing file, the robot joints disassemble when I try moving one of robot's component parts (links). I implemented such joint constraints by combining a parallel line with a coincident point constraint, and these constraints reactivate if I exit SolveSpace and then launch and reopen my file.

My 2d drawing exhibiting the problem is generated by launching SolveSpace and opening Robot.slvs. Regardless of how that file was viewed when I saved and exited the program, SolveSpace always starts in a default work plane-aligned view with shading. I turn off shading, I "hide all" construction lines, and I click "Show hidden lines" to paradoxically hide them by plotting them as white lines on a white background. Strangely, "Hide hidden lines" plots the hidden lines in the wireframe view in the edge color. I then rotate the view and select the "Isometric" button to view the robot with the square base at the bottom of the figure and then invoked Export 2d View to save the file "Robot" in PDF, EPS, and SVG formats.

All functioning 2d formats show the missing arc problem, but I couldn't get the EPS format to work with any EPS-capable software. The file Robot.pdf is a direct PDF export of my robot "line drawing." I use OpenOffice Draw for much of my technical illustration, and the file RobotOODraw.pdf is the result of importing the "picture" Robot.svg into the OpenOffice document Robot.odg and then printing to PDF. Apart from the missing arcs, this process resulting in RobotOODraw.pdf is close to what I want whereas the direct PDF output to Robot.pdf produces much thicker lines than the .svg output for a given pixel line thickness and it has a clutter of superimposed "hairline" construction lines.

Perhaps there are some configuration settings I could try? I have experimented with many combinations already.
Tue May 30 2017, 12:46:43, download attachment SerialRobot.zip
(no subject) (by whitequark)
What version are you using? See the attachment for PDF export results for the latest nightly. Can you confirm it is what you expect?
Tue May 30 2017, 18:03:43, download attachment Robot.pdf
Confirming file Robot.pdf and version I am using (by Paul Milenkovic)
The posted file Robot.pdf looks exactly what I expect for line thickness, no missing arcs in the circles, and no strange clutter of "hairline" construction lines. For clarification, "robot.slvs" shows that partial assembly of the robot with 5 parts (base plus four links) seen in your Robot.pdf file whereas "robotassembled.slvs" shows a more complete robot with 7 parts (base plus 6 links) seen in my Robot.pdf file, but either .slvs file was generating 2d figures with missing arcs.

I downloaded the Windows executable "solvespace.exe" that was on the GitHub Web site as of last week, which shows version "2.3~7c1ca460" in Help About. The .exe file has 6,670,848 bytes. The program is showing this behavior both under Windows 7 and under Windows 8.1.
Tue May 30 2017, 18:41:43
(no subject) (by whitequark)
Try downloading a nightly build from https://ci.appveyor.com/project/whitequark/solvespace/build/artifacts. It should not have the disassembly issue either.
Wed May 31 2017, 02:24:25
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