Folks,

I'm a totally new user, coming to Inkscape so that I can modify some drawings intended for laser cutting.

My understanding is that, since laser cutting is done by the machine minute, reducing to the minimal path length can save considerable time/money.

My original drawings are done with OpenSCAD, projected to 2D and then projected and exported as DXF.

Now, I want to rearrange parts on the layout so that lines overlap and then delete the duplicate lines so that the laser can "share" the cut between adjacent parts.

After reading some of the FAQ and clicking around a bit, it seems I can convert my segments to paths, then somehow combine and then delete the "extra" portion of a path.

However, the union/combine/join type commands seem to be concerned with the space inside of the shape, while I'm more concerned with the shared lines obviously.

Would it be possible for someone to share a menu sequence which could e.g.:

align two selections so that they share a line then eliminate the duplicate part?

I expect that for lines of exactly the same length, I could click around and get it done but for lines which are of differing lengths, I imagine I have to cut one line according to the location of a neighboring vertex etc, which probably involves snapping to points etc.

Any help is appreciated!

Thanks,

Brad

Hi there,

can you provide an example svg of your basic design, and a sketch of what you want the final version to be?
It would be much easier to understand and you could get more precise workaround suggestions.

OK, let me see if this works - I made a simple drawing and saved as SVG - it's not my DXF but the idea is exactly the same. Imagine the drawing has many rectangles and triangle shapes, which are currently all non-overlapping, non-touching. I would like to move a bunch of triangles so that they overlap an edge of a rectangle as in the example file. The corner of the triangle should be *shared* with the rectangle, and the overlapping edge should also be shared, i.e. one segment between the two shapes. I would imagine that there are commands to rotate the triangle until edges are parallel, then snap the figure so that the corners coincide, then to cut the edge of the rectangle at exactly the point where the other vertex of the triangle intersects the egge (I drew a box around it). I imagine that, even though i can only see one line, that in fact in the overlapping portion, there are two line segments. I would like to select one and delete it. Then I would like to export as a "typical" DXF which could be read by a laser cutter so that it only cuts once to separate the triangle shape from the rectangle....

I don't know much about Inkscape nor the constraints of DXF nor laser cutting (nice huh!) but trying to get this job done anyway.

I'm sure these functions are there, but buried in the docs/menu. I spent a couple of months trying to learn how to do similar things in Blender a while back fo ra different project and thought maybe i'd just ask for help up front this time The laser cutting quotes i'm getting are more than double what i was expecting and I think i can make some significant savings in this way. Thanks for any assistance!

OK folks, turns out this was pretty easy to do... I just ungrouped the imported DXF objects, deleted a straight line I intended to share then regrouped. Then I could rotate and align that group to other objects on the page and easily tweak individual segements. I guess for laser cutting I don't actually need to join objects at their vertices.

A-ha!
Some tips anyway:
At inkscape preferences panel (Shift+Ctrl+P), you can set the bounding box from visual to geometrical,
solving the problem of different line widths, if there was any.
For snapping to other object's edges, set the snap to edges, smooth- and cusp nodes on the snap toolbar.
And, you can unconnect path segments with the node editor tool.