Exporting a Workspace to DXF

Measuring a part on the mill gives you a set of coordinates, and the next thing most people want is to draw from them. A CSV export carries the numbers, which suits a spreadsheet, but a CAD package has to be told how to turn a column of figures into geometry.

A DXF export carries the drawing instead. The sub-datums arrive as points you can snap to, the circles you fitted arrive as circles, and an imported drawing comes back out with its layers intact. Every CAD package reads DXF, so the file opens in Fusion, FreeCAD, QCAD, SolidWorks, and anything else you already use.

Exporting the Workspace

To export, open the "Workspace Commands" menu with the menu ("⋮") button in the upper-right corner of the sub-datum panel, then tap "Export to DXF File". TouchDRO will ask where to save the file.

The whole of the current workspace goes into the file. There is nothing to select and nothing to configure, because every CAD package has better tools for hiding and deleting than a checklist in an export dialog would be. What you filter on the tablet makes no difference either: the tag filter is a way of looking at the workspace, not a property of it, so a hidden tag still exports.

The file is named for where it came from, so it still says so once it is off the tablet:

touchdro-workspace-Motor_Flange-PM_935_Mill-mill-20260810_114435.dxf

What the File Contains

Everything is sorted onto layers, so the first thing you do in CAD is not untangling it. The layer names are fixed and worth knowing, since a script that post-processes the file can rely on them:

DATUM: The workspace origin, as a point with a small cross drawn around it.
TAG_<tag>: Sub-datum points, one layer per tag. Points with no tag land on "TAG_UNTAGGED".
DATUM_LABELS: Each sub-datum's name, as text beside its point. They are on their own layer so you can switch off the labels and keep the points.
GUIDES: Sub-datums that fix only one axis, drawn as construction lines running the length of the drawing.
MEASURED: Geometry committed by the measuring functions, such as a circle fitted through three points.

Layer "0" is present and left empty, which is the convention CAD packages expect.

The measuring functions report distances, angles, and diameters as figures, and those are not in the DXF. Geometry goes into the drawing; the numbers behind a measurement belong in the "inspection log" export, which writes them as text or CSV.

Tags Become Layers

A tag and a CAD layer are the same idea: every point belongs to exactly one, and you show and hide them as a group. So a tag becomes a layer, and it keeps its color. A workspace tagged "Corner" and "Hole_5.5mm" arrives as layers "TAG_Corner" and "TAG_Hole_5.5mm", colored the way the tag marks were on the tablet, and hiding one in CAD does what hiding it in the tag panel does.

Tag names are adjusted where DXF requires it, since a few punctuation characters are not allowed in a layer name. The tag panel's own rules take care of the rest, because tags are already single words with no spaces.

Imported Drawings

A drawing you imported is written back out on its own layer names rather than merged into one. A file that arrived with "PROFILE", "HOLES", and "DETAIL" leaves with them, so a round trip through TouchDRO does not flatten the structure you set up in CAD. Line styles are carried across as well, so centerlines and hidden lines still read as themselves.

Units and Coordinates

The file is written in the profile's default units, millimeters or inches, and it states which in its header. CAD packages read that, so the drawing comes in at the right size instead of arriving 25.4 times too big.

Coordinates are the stored ones, the same figures the sub-datum list shows. A part rotation or an axis alignment in force at the time changes what the readouts report, not what is stored, so neither one reaches the file. The drawing you get is the drawing you laid out, whatever angle the part was sitting at when you exported it.

Flat and 3D Exports

The sub-datum panel's 2D/3D toggle decides whether the points carry their heights. In 2D mode TouchDRO writes every point at Z zero, which is what you want for a drawing: the points are coplanar, so they behave as a sketch and CAD reports the distance between two of them as the distance on the part.

In 3D mode each point keeps the Z it was captured at. That suits a part whose features sit at different heights, though it is worth knowing that a CAD measure tool then reports the true distance in space between two points rather than the distance across the plan view. Some packages also keep points off the sketch plane out of a sketch when you import into one.

Geometry is flat either way. The drawing and the measured circles are in the plane, so only the points move.

Lathe Workspaces

A lathe workspace exports the way you look at the machine rather than the way a CAM package expects: the spindle axis runs horizontally across the drawing and the cross-slide axis runs up it, so Z becomes the drawing's X and X becomes the drawing's Y. Open the file and the profile lies the way it does on the lathe, and the way it does on the print.

Opening the File in CAD

Point entities are drawn differently by every CAD package, and some of them default to a single pixel. If the geometry appears but the sub-datums seem to be missing, the points are almost certainly there and too small to see. LibreCAD, for instance, sets the point style under "Application Preferences", in the "Graphic View" tab.

Beyond that the file needs no preparation. Everything is at 1:1 in real units, the layers are already sorted, and the origin is where the workspace origin was, so a drawing you build over the top of it lines up with the part you measured.