Does Ares Kudo Actually Function For Real Work?

S1mon

Is anyone successfully using Ares Kudo?

I'm trying to clean up a simple one page fab drawing for a PCB (~1.3MB .DWG). Onshape won't import a simple DXF from this file as it is too complex for its little brain.

The file has a bunch of text and layers I don't need. I've managed to figure out some basic layer manipulation, and I can isolate just the bits I want on a few layers, but I can't figure out how to export those. I was never an AutoCAD user, so I have to Google basic things like "what's the difference between hiding and freezing a layer". I was hoping that freezing might prevent the layer from being exported. No such luck.

I've searched through the Ares Kudo help, and their useless Youtube channel and there's not much which answers a few basic questions:

1. How do I export either just a selection or just a layer of items to DXF?
2. How can I get it to delete entities without spinning forever or dying? Seriously this thing has crashed or died on me a bunch of times. It gives me zero confidence that it would work for more complex tasks.

So far this seems like a very half baked toy clone of AutoCAD which is missing most features. Do I need to get Ares Commander to do real work?

wayne_sauder

  I don’t consider myself to be a pro at it. However I do use it some, If you are paying the standard subscription fee you should not need the commander if you just occasionally need to do stuff like this. Can you delete whole layers? I have found that to work better than trying to delete entities. The other trick I have used some is to copy and paste only what you want to a new tab.  
  I don’t have any experience with AutoCAD but I did use a professional level of Draftsite 2D  for a bit and while the user interface was a more pleasant experience, I didn’t find the tools or power to be much difference.    

S1mon

I may spend some more time trying to take different approaches with Kudo, but….

As a follow up, it took me a couple minutes to use Rhino to import the .DWG and export a .DXF of just what I wanted. Now I need to figure out where in the process the file ended up with five zillion points where they should be simple arcs and lines.