Help File cutting to much

[Glen Monaghan]

Kev,

There are a couple of problems with your shape. First, it isn't a single shape: as you already discovered, it has several overlapping copies of various segments. But the second and possibly more problematic issue is that most of the segments (objects) are not single arcs/lines but rather are closed (very narrow) paths. Looks like 17 closed paths that, without zooming in tight, appear to make the pill or racetrack shape, along with 12 very short line segments at the ends of the two horizontal "lines" (two at each end of the top line and four at each end of the bottom line). Furthermore, one of the closed (curved) objects is actually disjoint and covers 4 separate parts of the two arcs, one of those 4 parts is an open curve, and the object is CMYK where the other objects are RGB. Some of the objects have hairline outlines while other outlines are greater than hairline thickness. There are three overlapping horizontal objects across the top, but 7 across the bottom. There are 3 complete arcs on each side plus the one disjoint arc shape that overlaps both sides.

Presumably this mess is due to the way the object was drawn in the original program and then a lousy export and conversion into coreldraw. The combination of disjoint objects, open and closed paths, and degeneratively small segments makes it hard or maybe impossible to clean up with a couple of simple, quick clicks in coreldraw. It's simple but a little time consuming to delete the duplicate and excess objects, leaving only 4 essential objects (a top and bottom horizontal section, plus left and right arcs), combine, smart fill, select no fill, and ensure hairline outline for cutting.

I assume that the original object was created/exported as an outline, which might be part of the problem. Try creating and exporting as a filled, non-outlined object and see if that produces a single, clean, filled object in coreldraw that you can hairline outline and set to no fill.

[Kev Williams]

What I do Glen, is set my nudge for 20" or so (whatever it takes to be well away from the main graphics), then click and move individual segments, as you stated. If a partial segment moves, I delete it- and repeat until I have the 4 good pieces I need. From there the simple outline tool works. From THERE, I copy and paste them over any others...

The problem is, for one, deleting all the bad holes later, and mostly, this particular job has about 6 different sizes of these, about 6 to 10 of each size on one batch layout...!

Normally I just 'select all text', move it all well away, then group and batch outline everything from the outside in. To do this on this job, I would be done in about 5 minutes...

Doing it the pick-n-move way takes nearly an hour!

So essentially what I have here is a rant with no solution (my apologies! ), other than maybe get the guy drawing these shapes to figure out a better way to do it! (and I'm no help as I've never used Autocad)...

Back to Bert, sir-- as I stated before, I believe you're having the same problem, as I know you're importing other people's work (typically)-- Your fix may be to try the pick-n-move method, to give yourself only ONE of everything to cut!

[Glen Monaghan]

So try the suggestion about having him create the same shape as a non-outlined, closed and filled object for you, and see if you can simply import, choose no fill, and set hairline outline.

[Dave Sheldrake]

If the customer is using AutoCAD Kev he needs to draw basic shapes like that using Lines and Arcs , NOT Splines...bezier curves are great is everybodies software uses the same means of reading them...that rarely happens.

Line/Arc followed by PEdit to turn those lines and arcs into a single joined polyline

Once he has made his shape if he uses "Overkill" that will remove any double entries like duplicates and extra segments

[Bert Kemp]

Kev did you see my post #15

What I do Glen, is set my nudge for 20" or so (whatever it takes to be well away from the main graphics), then click and move individual segments, as you stated. If a partial segment moves, I delete it- and repeat until I have the 4 good pieces I need. From there the simple outline tool works. From THERE, I copy and paste them over any others...

The problem is, for one, deleting all the bad holes later, and mostly, this particular job has about 6 different sizes of these, about 6 to 10 of each size on one batch layout...!

Normally I just 'select all text', move it all well away, then group and batch outline everything from the outside in. To do this on this job, I would be done in about 5 minutes...

Doing it the pick-n-move way takes nearly an hour!

So essentially what I have here is a rant with no solution (my apologies! ), other than maybe get the guy drawing these shapes to figure out a better way to do it! (and I'm no help as I've never used Autocad)...

Back to Bert, sir-- as I stated before, I believe you're having the same problem, as I know you're importing other people's work (typically)-- Your fix may be to try the pick-n-move method, to give yourself only ONE of everything to cut!

[Kev Williams]

uuhh, no, not till now!

[Joe Pelonio]

Joe do you mean ungroup, I did a ungroup then deleted and all disaperared I designed in corel the saved as dxf and imported to lasercut

Yes, darned iPad self correct!