Too many points! CNC Machine Overload

[Anonymous]

Folks I am having that problem with the attached file.

I sent this file to a water jet cutting company and they tell me there are "too many points" and there CAD machine will lock up.

If I remember right he said anything over a meg means the lines of code could be in the millions...?

I suspect it has everything to do w/ me EXPLODING MTEXT to make the STENCIL font work , and the actual Elk itself I believe is an issue.

I found the elk on the web then converted it with Raster-Vector . If there is a better program for these tasks I would appreciate a

heads up please.

 My dwg file is 821KB, when I convert it to dxf it bloats to over 4 megs. The Cyan colored rectangular boxes around my parts simply

represent some pieces of metal I own that are old and rusty that I wanted these parts cut from. 

Brad

[Kent1Cooper]

Some of that stuff [I looked at an Elk outline in particular, but it may be true of other things, too] is made up of a huge number of teeny-tiny little Lines that probably constitute a far higher resolution than cutting out of sheet metal would justify.  I suggest you PEDIT / Join them into as few Polylines as you can, and then use something like PLDiet.lsp [available here] to significantly reduce the number of vertices in them.

[PaulMunford]

Hi Brad,

That's a great suggestion from Kent. You will find some more suggestions here:

http://cadsetterout.com/autocad-tutorials/cad-to-cam-cleaning-up-dwg-files-for-cnc/

Paul

[Anonymous]

Kent,

   Thank you for the reply. I "think" I am onto what you speak of.

I tried it and guessed (due to ignorance / uneducated, at a couple of things.

The first thing I guessed at was the command line said;

Select polyline or [Multiple]: I guessed and entered "MULTIPLE"

The second thing I guessed at was when the command line said;

Convert Lines,  Arcs and Splines to polylines [Yes/No]? I entered "Y"

Next what I call an error box opened that said;

This operation may take a long time.

To greatly improve performance, the system can disregard Draw Order.

Disregard Draw Order for this option?  I guessed and selected YES

Specify a precision for spline conversion <10>:

I guessed and entered 10

Next command line says;

Enter and option [Close/Open/Join/Width/Fit/Spline/Decurve/Ltype gen/Reverse/Undo ] :

I guessed and entered Join

Next command line says;

Enter Fuzz distance or [Jointype] <0.0000>:

I guessed and entered 1.0000

I hit enter and waited about 1.5 minutes and it spits out the attached file.

So above where I say " I GUESSED" should have I used other parameters?

Brad

[Kent1Cooper]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

.... 

So above where I say " I GUESSED" should have I used other parameters?

....

---

Those difficulties are probably the result of the fact that the routine was written at a time when Splines could not be Joined to Polylines.  It should work on Polylines themselves.  I would suggest trying PEDIT / Joining only Lines/Arcs/Polylines, without including any Splines, so that the results are only "pure" Polylines, and then trying PLDIET on just the Polylines.  You should be able to greatly reduce the number of vertices in them that way, and surely it's in those [not in the Splines] that the overload is occurring.

[Anonymous]

    Well , were trying to learn here...

I figured out how to load a lisp file ( I hear many OH NO'ssss in the background)

SO I grabbed the PLDIET LISP .

I opened my file and first I did the PEDIT, then I saved that file. It is attached to this post.

Then I successfully loaded the PLDIET list and executed the Command line prompt PLD and

it started. Here is what happened;

Command: PLD
Maximum distance between non-collinear vertices to straighten:
Maximum change in direction to straighten <15>:
Retain or Straighten arc segments [R/S] <S>:
Select LWPolylines to put on a diet, or press Enter to select all:
Select objects: 1 found
Select objects: 1 found, 2 total
Select objects: 1 found, 3 total
Select objects: 1 found, 4 total
Select objects: 1 found, 5 total
Select objects: 1 found, 6 total
Select objects: 1 found, 7 total
Select objects: 1 found, 8 total
Select objects: 1 found, 9 total
Select objects: 1 found, 10 total
Select objects: 1 found, 11 total
Select objects: Specify opposite corner: 144 found (11 duplicate), 144 total
Select objects:
Error: no function definition: VLAX-CURVE-GETSTARTPOINT

Command: PLD
Maximum distance between non-collinear vertices to straighten:
Maximum change in direction to straighten <15>:
Retain or Straighten arc segments [R/S] <S>:
Select LWPolylines to put on a diet, or press Enter to select all:
Select objects: 1 found
Select objects:
Error: no function definition: VLAX-CURVE-GETSTARTPOINT

Punt 😞

[Kent1Cooper]

I guess that was from the days when I wasn't always remembering to include the following line in routines, because something in my setup did it for me outside any custom commands.  Add, either before the start of  (defun ...  at the top or after the end of it  ); defun at the bottom, this line to load up the (vl...) functions:

(vl-load-com)