[dlenardu]

Ok, So I'm no expert with Dolphin but I have gotten to the point where I am pretty good and confident in what it can do. That being said, I ran into a problem doing a very simple shape. When the tool goes around the part as it gets to the round edges the tool stops, retracts to the clear plane and then descends again. It does this at both ends and does it each time it travels around the part. It must be something stupid that I'm overlooking but I cannot seem to figure it out. I think my eyes are tired and I need an outside look at it.

[andre-dolphin]

This is caused by errors in the original geometry.

If you zoom in really close on the two end radii you will see that there is a very small line between the the two end arcs, when the Contours was created (traced) this line was created in the opposite direction to the arcs.

When the offseting routine examines this, it sees the miss match in directions and retracts the tool for safety - otherwise it would overcut with the tool moving to the wrong side of the geometry.

I have attached a modified drawing and cnc file.

ATb
Andre

[dlenardu]

See, I knew it was something stupid that I was overlooking. Thanks again Andre

[John S.]

As Andre has said, caused by errors in the original geometry which is very, very common.
A lot of programs do nor connect arcs to lines accurately enough.

In VCarve from Vectric they have a command called "show open vectors" which highlights any open vectors as a series of dotted lines.

You can then use a command called "Join open vectors " which does so and tells you how many are left, obviously straight lines on their own will always be open.

It's so quick that I often bring a DXF into Vectric, check for open vectors, resave the DXF and bring it into Dolphin where it then has no problem.

This open vectors is not a Dolphin problem but it could handle the problem better as Vectric has done.

I have passed some of my views on to the Dolphin team to make the program faster and easier and hope that these get implemented in the next version.

John S.

[harley4ever]

I agree John S. Sounds like that would save some valuable time.