Tips for spotting looped lines/artifacts in drawings?

[motoguy]

I'm playing with a cherry blossom tree of life file I downloaded somewhere. It's throwing a red error in Sheetcam. I've found several small looped lines in the drawing, which I've fixed. I cannot find why it's erroring out now. Do any of you have tips for finding looped lines/entities in your drawing? This whole "zoom way in and follow each line" stuff is for the birds!

Here's the file in question:

Cherry Blossom 18 in.svg

[motoguy]

Of course, after posting this I find the error. However, the question stands. Is there a better way?

[tcaudle]

Only way I know is to take the drawing and if it has a bunch of objects (closed node chains) group them in smaller groups on different layers and see which lavers have the error. the layer that is a problem will still have to be looked at line by line....it just breaks the number of lines down . If its one giant toolpath then its just a tedious process. Some of the loops are tiny and hard to see. In node edit mode in Corel or inkscape you can sometimes spot the arc handles crossing each other that is a clue.

[ovrrdrive]

For grins, I ran the file in sheetcam and told it to loop the sharp corners with a triangle and ran the operation. It points out a bunch of corners you would probably want to clean up a little but I didn't see an obvious fault. Then I ran the same inside layer but with an outside offset to check the other side of the shapes for a loop and saw this. Is that your spot?

Capturehh.JPG

The only reason I thought to check it like that is because you said you thought it had loops in it. First time I've tried it though. Seems like running inside and outside operations and following the cut lines would have showed it even without the looped corners.

[acourtjester]

I don't know if this is the problem you found but this is an area where it was to small for the path to go. you can see that the rapids show where the torch would go but it is not a starting point.

errror.jpg

[muzza]

Another way is to import the file into Sheetcam and check for additional pierce points on any of the lines. Where you can normally click to move the start point on a closed path, with any of these tiny loops the start point wont move so either go back to the drawing and fix or edit the G-code to take out that pierce.
Murray

[steel 35]

Sheetcam / And a Icon that say's Join, Know how many programs have that & are adjustable?

[Old Iron]

If you'll open the drawing in Inkscape, click on the node button and increase the line width to around 5 you'll see that the lines have hook backs in them and that's why you're having trouble in Sheetcam with errors.
Besides that drawing is huge too.

[Old Iron]

Here's the same area with a few nodes deleted and adjusted.

[Old Iron]

Like was already said, some lines are just too close for the torch to cut properly.
The errors I seen in Sheetcam will not stop the file from cutting.

[motoguy]

I ended up finding them all and correcting them. I always import my drawings into Sheetcam to check tooth path issues prior to cutting. An area too narrow for the tool path won't cause a "red" error; just a "some features are too small to cut properly" (or whatever the verbage is). If sheetcam can't get through a narrow cut, it'll just jump across and create a non-numbered pierce point (with a non-adjustible lead in or pierce point.)

In my experience, the red stop sign errors are usually open features, lines looping over themselves, or duplicate/overlapping features. I use the tools for showing tool paths, showing pierce points, rotate view to see rapid points, etc to find the problem areas. Sometimes, on very small defects, the issue is hard to find. That's why I'm looking for additional methods.

I've found that many (most?) drawings I download (here, FB groups, etc) have a bazillion nodes, and are error prone. I always reduce nodes before saving as a final "good" drawing, but this is done after resolving drawing errors (such as these looping issues).

[motoguy]

Like was already said, some lines are just too close for the torch to cut properly.
The errors I seen in Sheetcam will not stop the file from cutting.

The yellow warnings are typically just a "feature too small to cut" warning. I'll usually just inspect the tool path, and see if the results are acceptable, or if areas need opened up. Not too worried about those.

The red warnings, though, are typically true drawing defects. I don't like having bad drawings, and loosening Sheetcam settings to cut / "fix' them. I'd rather have a quality drawing that I know I can rely on later, without having to remember unique" quirks" for each.

[WyoGreen]

Old Irons suggestion to make the lines wider to spot defects works well. Another thing I do to make sure things will cut without problems is to make the line width equal to or slightly greater than the plasma torch cut width for the gauge of metal I'm planing on using. This shows up the lines that are a bit too close to each other.

Steve

[acourtjester]

As they say your never to old to learn, thanks for posting your tricks I picked up some new ones

[Jacky Elliott]

In sheetcam, turn off all of the view buttons except for "Show Path Ends". With everything off, it will show open paths. Then you can turn on "Show Input Path" and see where on your drawing it's located and then go correct it in your drawing program. Like Inkscape. Look for the odd looking nodes and if you can find them just delete nodes until one shows itself.

[ovrrdrive]

The only problem with that Jacky is that there weren't any open lines in this one. I looked. With a little tweaking I think it would cut out ok but this drawing definitely had a lot of issues.