Imported board outline (.dxf) - relocate to origin?

Question

Greetings. New to Eagle, trying to work through some issues importing a board outline from a .dxf (generated in Solidworks) to Eagle. I am doing this because the board has been specifically designed to fit in a tight spot in an assembly in Solidworks, so I'd like to avoid re-creating it in Eagle to avoid introducing the chance for more error. I've successfully brought the board outline in using a dxf to script conversion tool, but now I am having difficulty figuring out a way to relocate the outline to the origin. Unfortunately I cannot intelligently located the board outline relative to the .dxf generated in solidworks - solidworks does not let you dimension a part origin (used to define the board outline) relative to a sheet origin (used to define the .dxf) - very frustrating. So I am having two specific issues relative to this:

1) I cannot figure out a way to select the entire board outline and move it as a group. I've tried the "group" command followed by the "move" command, but when I click on a section of the outline to "move" it, that section of the outline just dynamically re-sizes. How can I move the outline as a whole?

2) Since the outline comes in to Eagle not referenced relative to anything useful, it is not necessarily dropped on to the grid in Eagle. So even if I could move the outline as a unit, I may not be able to locate a corner or a center of the outline on the origin. Is there any way to move the outline as a unit, but pick a specific point on the outline as the defining point that will be moved (so it can be dropped on the origin in Eagle)?

I've found that I can find the location of the start and end of the lines/arcs defining the outline in Eagle using the info command, so I can work around these issues by defining the locations of components relative to a line or arc start/end point that makes sense to be the board "origin". But it would be great to not have to work through this coordinate transformation every time I place a component.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Chris

bmoe · Accepted Answer

Hi.

I´ll try to answer your questions.

1: Group everything you want to move using the group caommand. Then Ctrl + Right click(dont hold the mousebutton, just click.) to move the selection.

2: Say thet your lowest X point is at 34.028375mm and lowest Y point is at 24.923048mm, then first set the grid size to 34.028375 and move your group to the X zero, and then set the grid size to 24.923048 and move your selection to Y zero. This way you now have your board outline at the X and Y zero point.

I hope this helped.

/Matias