Hi,

I’m trying out the Stairdesigner software and am using the Stairdesigner Sample files – SD file – quarter turn stair with winders.stair

I have imported stringers and treads so far, and cut the stringers at 60% actual size just to get a feel for what work needs to be done in order to cut on CNC once the stair design is in .dxf format.

The one hitch I’ve found so far is that when I imported the .dxf for the newel posts, only the stringer and handrail slots came into vCarve. The mortise for the treads was missing. The reason is that vCarve recognizes when an incoming vector layer has the same name as an already existing layer, and won’t import that new layer.

i.e.: When I imported the stringers, a layer came in called – “step_housing_30x15”. So when I tried to import the newel posts, it stripped off that layer because there was already a layer with the same name. Once I realized what was happening, I renamed the layer for the stringers and was then able to import correctly.
So naming conventions for post processed files would be better if referenced to a specific part layer. (stringer_step_housing_30x15, post_step_housing_30x15)

Note:
This wouldn’t be an issue if different files were created in vCarve for each component such as Stringers.crv, Treads.crv, Posts.crv, etc. But I’ve found it’s much more convenient to put a complete job into one file and separate components into different layers. It could be avoided in vCarve by using the “merge visible layers” command each time a new component was imported. However, then you lose the ability to show/hide different aspects (layers) of the imported file.