Trying to understand 'closing' these vectors

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Ton80
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Trying to understand 'closing' these vectors

Post by Ton80 »

Hi,

I have watched the node editing tip/tricks and watched what I thought were relevant tutorials. I didn't really see anything that seems to address what I am trying to accomplish and maybe I am approaching this incorrectly from the start.

I lost the file I started with ( something happened on the computer and the mouse... window stopped recognizing the left mouse button and I had to reboot without saving... love windows ) but I did take a screenshot prior so I can explain what I was trying to do.

The area in the donut is what I want to pocket. The center will be pocketed separately but currently, those single lines between the dashes are open vectors so the software is pocketing everything when I try to assign the toolpath in the outer area.
screenshot from VCP
screenshot from VCP

How I go to the point you see in the screen shot...
image I am recreating
image I am recreating
You can see that I have the outer donut where the text will go in the screenshot from VCP. The inner circle should start so it's UNDER the dashed lines. I created the text and the outermost circle in VCP. The vectors that make up the dashes were created outside and imported, then scaled up. Then I created another circle in VCP and scaled it so it was overlapping the dash vectors. Then used the scissor tool to snip away the part of the circle that was INSIDE the dash vectors. The toolpath window explained I have those 16 open vectors and this is why the center area is also being pocketed. I can't seem to get those lines between the dashes to close to the dashes... been through all the available editing tools and nothing seems to close them.

Question would be... is this possible to create what I am doing but I need to approach it differently from the start? I suspect this is possible but I just need to do set that inside circle that touches the dashes in a different way.

Thoughts?

Thx ~ John

Ton80
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Re: Trying to understand 'closing' these vectors

Post by Ton80 »

I thought maybe they weren't closing because there weren't any NODES at the point where the dash vectors touched the vectors left behind from the circle... I started trying to insert a node point on the dash vector but that is about when windows bugged out on me... was I onto the proper approach?

joeporter
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Re: Trying to understand 'closing' these vectors

Post by joeporter »

I think you have to use the trim tool and cut out the bottom parts of the rectangles and that will allow the circle vector to join the upper half of the rectangle and form a single vector so you can make your pocket. I copied the original circle and rectangles and pasted them on top of the original and with that hi-lighted, move to a new layer to save for later, then went to the original and snipped away the bottom half of rectangles. Will try to include a couple of screenshots to show what I mean...joe
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Can't close these vectors
Can't close these vectors
Snip bottom of rectangles
Snip bottom of rectangles

Samson
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Re: Trying to understand 'closing' these vectors

Post by Samson »

You'll need to create a vector to encompass the dashes and rectangles to close the vector.

Like this...


Image

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jimwill2
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Re: Trying to understand 'closing' these vectors

Post by jimwill2 »

If you create a full circle that is on the dashed circle it should pocket like you want.
Jim Williams

Frunple

Re: Trying to understand 'closing' these vectors

Post by Frunple »

Multiple ways to do this.
I would copy the center "circle" including the rectangles to another layer, then trim the rectangles so you end up with a closed circle as in the post above.
You can hide this layer as needed until you go to toolpath it, then select the new inner circle to pocket.

Ton80
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Re: Trying to understand 'closing' these vectors

Post by Ton80 »

That is exactly what I just finished doing ;) - So when I go to create my toolpaths for the inside area those dashes will be finished off by basically reversing all the trimming I just ran the first time to get to this.

Thanks for the help everyone!

~John
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Ton80
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Re: Trying to understand 'closing' these vectors

Post by Ton80 »

Exactly what I was looking for. Thanks again for the help!
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