Hi,

I am wondering if there is a way to automatically select a sequence of edges such as every other edge. I have 4 paragraphs of text to create as in the example below where I will have to select and delete every other edge around each character's perimeter. A lot of clicking...

Any ideas?

Thanks!
Terry

Hi Terry, there isn't currently any method that I can think of for automating that kind of selection.

But maybe it would work easier if instead of just a bunch of individual internal cutting lines if you had rectangles something like this:



That way you could use the rectangles as cutting objects in a boolean difference, and the boolean difference will slice away the pieces contained inside the rectangles like this:




If you didn't want to leave the "side walls" of the rectangles behind, try using Edit > Separate on the "f" letter before hand and don't select the bottom line of it when doing the difference so that the base object for the boolean is an open curve rather than a closed curve. That will then only delete chunks of the open curve rather than trying to form closed regions out of it like will happen when the base object can be auto joined into a closed curve.

- Michael

Thank for the reply Michael. I didn't think there was a way to do it but thought I'd ask since I am facing hours of clicking. Still, it is faster than trying to do it in Illustrator. This is the shape I need to end up with. Sort of a zigzag path back and forth. It will be used for water jet etching.

Did some searching.
Looks like this is like "zig zag milling" with a "linked tool path."

Tool-path planning for direction-parallel area milling

http://vms.kaist.ac.kr/publications/Journal/[27]%20CAD-00-DParea.pdf

Very preliminarily, it looks like parallel lines are used to get the nodes, which are then linked up
for the path...
?
- Brian

Hi Terry,
So another way to do it would be to generate a planar toolpath on a "surface" and post code for it, then a guy wrote a program that will generate a dxf file off of your gcode, which you can use at the waterjet. (There are some free cam programs to get the code if you dont have something like that)

The program is here on the cnczone forum:

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/opensource_software/8814-g-code_dxf-2.html#post183370

Some of the links will require an account made to log in to download it. He has it listed as open, but not sure if I can just post it here. Probably better left to aquire it from the source.

The dxf can be imported to MoI if you need to further work it...

Thanks for the suggestions guys.
Terry

Studied the paper quite a bit, and looked at the plane sweep paradigm algorithm(s).
Starting with a letter, lines which will become tool paths can be arrayed.
One use of the intersect script can find all the points, but may not be needed.
Using Boolean intersect, all of the tool path line elements i,j can be made from the lines.
Using trim, all of the boundary curve segments can be created, of which about half are used.
A list or array of all of the left and right endpoints of the line elements would need to be made. (MoI knows the start and end points)
A list or array of all of the left (upper) and right endpoints of the boundary curve segments would be needed.
Select a start point and generate the sub-path, using points which match and a few simple rules. Repeat loop.
Some of the uppermost, and lowermost boundary curve segments may need some tweaking.

So a script could probably be done, with a lot of work(?)

Had some fun manually creating some zigzags.

- Brian