Engineering companies report significant increases in productivity when they are able to send CAD drawing files to firms offering laser cutting services. The notes below provide a summary of the technique that should be used to prepare CAD drawings for this purpose.

Software used by laser cutting firms

It is important to realize that it is unusual for AutoCAD or IntelliCAD to be used directly to drive laser cutting equipment. Many laser (and flame cutters) have their own special software so your drawing needs to be converted by the software used by laser cut firm. Their software will use an import facility to bring your design work into their environment. It follows then that you want to make the conversion as seamless as possible.

I recommend that you send your information as a .DWG file in AutoCAD 12 format together with a DXF file. DXF files are created using a the DXFOUT command in AutoCAD or IntelliCAD. Keep the number of decimal points in the DXF file to a reasonable number - 6 decimal places is the default, I use a single decimal point.

What entities do I use when constructing the drawing?

Build the drawing using the simplest (an most primitive) of drawing entities. A drawing built of line segments and arcs will work well. A drawing containing polylines will be difficult to work with. 

If you want a fold line, use a series of line segments to indicate this.

Put all 'real' entities on a single layer.

Create an 'annotation' layer and use it to include text notes advising the operator of any special features in your drawing. Put a small cross on this layer at 0,0 and make sure that the drawing is in the positive X and Y zone.

Include at least two dimensions (horizontal and vertical) on the annotation layer so that the operator can make sure that scale is correct. The figure below shows one of our drawings prepared to the above specification. we have not yet included the horizontal dimension.