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Background

We're often exchanging spatial data between QGIS and AutoCAD. Some things are more easily done in GIS, while precise drawings need to be done in CAD. Generally the interchangeability between the two softwares is good and well tested.

Problem

When buffering using QGIS we use round connections and endcaps with 80 segments per quarter circle. This gives a sufficient impression of a circle - but it is no real circle. AutoCAD itself creates circle(segments) as true circles and needs relatively much computational power in order to display segmented circles as QGIS produces them. When importing many layers from QGIS, this can make editing in CAD slow and annoying.

I am aware that I can create geopackage layers with curves - but then manually creating the buffers would be insane.

Question

Is there an option to create truly circular buffers using QGIS?

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You can use the "Convert to curved geometries" processing algorithm (since QGIS 3.14) to convert buffers (and other line and polygon geometries) to curved geometries.

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  • The tool works, and when using Export to DXF the final result can easily be loaded into CAD. Sadly simple circles are imported only as their center points, while irregular object with circle segments are fine. But that doesn't diminish the correct answer, thank you.
    – Erik
    Commented Jul 21, 2022 at 8:57
  • You might want to try a newer version of QGIS which might handle curves better, because with my Qgis 3.22 every way to create a circle creates it with multiple curved segments (2 half circles or 4 quarters) so I am not sure how you have complete simple circles
    – Kalak
    Commented Jul 21, 2022 at 9:31

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