Comment 0 for bug 171859

It would be nice to be able to "paint" the files my CAD system generates.
Most of these systems generate simple shapes, such as lines, arcs, and
polygons. If Inkscape could translate them into the corresponding SVG
shapes, we could decorate our engineering reports more tastefully. :)

DXF seems to be the lowest common denominator of mechanical CAD files:

<http://images.autodesk.com/adsk/files/acad_dxf0.pdf>

Most printed circuit boards are generated from "Gerber files", which are a
specialized adaptation of the general RS-274 or EIA-274 language for
numerically controlled machine tools. A free, mostly complete description
is here:

<http://www.isd.mel.nist.gov/personnel/kramer/pubs/RS274NGC_3.web/RS274NGC_
33a.html>

Also ESRI shapefiles would be nice. These are the dominant file format for
Geographic Information Systems (GIS):

<http://www.esri.com/library/whitepapers/pdfs/shapefile.pdf>