Sheetcam double cut in different directions - help?

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cire
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Sheetcam double cut in different directions - help?

Post by cire »

Hello all,

Could someone help me with understanding and correcting my issue with Sheetcam double cutting a single 1px line in different directions? It only does it with certain imported drawings and I don't know if I'm importing it incorrectly, or if there is a certain setting I need to adjust within Sheetcam or Inkscape.

The software's I'm using is Photoshop -> Inkscape -> Sheetcam - Mach3.

Thank you,
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acourtjester
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Re: Sheetcam double cut in different directions - help?

Post by acourtjester »

It sounds like you have double lines on top of each other. To check look when you do the plan in SheetCam see if you can see 2 starts (1 and 2 numbers showing) I you do then use the contour function and click on the line and right on and then left click and make one line a new layer.
you will see the new name show in the layer section (upper left) there will be a box next to the new name with a check in it. Click on it so it does not have a check and the do your cut plan (post process) this will not include the new names line. and you should be back to only one line cutting
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Re: Sheetcam double cut in different directions - help?

Post by sphurley »

Do you have lead ins or outs?
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cire
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Re: Sheetcam double cut in different directions - help?

Post by cire »

You guys are great, thank you so much! The solution that acourtjester provided allows me to not cut the second line.

Any thoughts on how I can prevent the lines from showing up in SheetCam before I import it? I'm new at this and have a ton of questions, please forgive me for my ignorance :)

-Cire
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acourtjester
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Re: Sheetcam double cut in different directions - help?

Post by acourtjester »

We all had to learn, question are not a problem as someone benefits and sometime it's the person that answers the question.
Questions provokes though. The double line is coming from the drawing process, It's hard to know where it is put into the drawing as many different programs have different function. Since you have identified the line try to remember how is was drawn, also when the line is selected in the drawing program it may say how many layers are shown. Here is an example from my CAD software I drew a line then copied it and overlaid one over the other, when I selected it the program saw 2 and showed that box with 2 lines for me to select the one I wanted to move or delete.
line.jpg
line.jpg (16.89 KiB) Viewed 887 times
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Re: Sheetcam double cut in different directions - help?

Post by tcaudle »

It sometimes happens when you go from a bitmap to a vector drawing (auto trace). Depending on the type of trace you select the software may se a line with thickness and trace on the outside of each side of the line. Look at the drawing in the normal mode (not outline and see if it has a width.
I am not too familiar with the autotrace in Inkscape so I don't know all the trace options but it looks like there are numerous settings and you can preview and also check the result in normal and outline modes to see if it picked up more than one line. The more complex the bitmap them more cleanup the autotrace results need. Some formats only export the centerline of the files so you could get two very close lines. I very seldom used any auto trace when I was doing a lot of artwork. At most I used edge detect to get a simulation of a line drawing (its not really) then hand traced that with the vector tools on another layer . As you get better with the hand tools in Inkscape or CorelDraw you can do a trace faster than an autotrace and lots of clean up. Its not often you can just scan, trace and cut without either starting with a line drawing or spending a lot of time working on the image prior to the autoscan then doing more editing afterwards. Things that autotrace best are drawings with distinct lines or color differences but those alos are a lot easier to hand trace too. You also have the liberty to edit and move things things that would have problems cutting with plasma.
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