I need to use a .DXF in either QGIS or ArcGIS.
However, if an Arc occurs in a .DXF drawing and if this file is opened in QGIS, I noticed that the geometry of the Arc is simplified. I did a test:
- draw circles in LibreCAD and save as .DXF (I uploaded it here)
- open in QGIS
- convert to shapefile
- edit shape
The circles, regardless of their size are approximated by 90 segments, so a 4-degree long circle segment is represented by a straight line. In my application this causes significant deviations (>25cm) in a canal design project...
I tried the same in ArcGIS. There, the simplification depends on the circle size - small circles have fewer segments, larger circles have more. So, in my case (for the kilometer long radius in canal bends) ArcGIS seems like the better choice.
As a side note: In ArcGIS the Arc of the .DXF is not simplified when visualized - the display of the .DXF seems correct when overlying with the exported shapefile. Within ArcGIS this would make at least snapping and digitization in higher accuracy possible.
I am a beginner in using .DXF files in GIS, but I feel this should be a popular problem. Though, after searching for a while I could not find a hint anywhere. I still fear I may miss something obvious... In case not, does anybody have a workaround for this?
I am using QGIS 2.10 (GDAL 1.11.2) and ArcGIS 10.2