Convert polyline-circle to circle

[Billy V]

i am new to all of this. would love to be able to remove all or most vertex's for any and all of my artwork. as for now i need to remove them from a circle.

i do not know what the codes are for or how to use them. any help, would help.. i hopesecond sign Y.dxf

second sign W.dxf

[Billy V]

i have attached two circles and or letters. that have to many lines, i need a circle or arc, with 2 or 4 that's not too in portent.

[Dadgad]

Welcome to CADTutor Billy.

 

From the sound of things, you need to know about the OVERKILL command.

I trust that you are using the CIRCLE command to create a circle?

If not, you should be.

[Billy V]

most of the dxf art is from plasmacam software. we are converting to lazer cutting.

and would hope that i dont have to redraw 10,000 plus drawings.

not all circles are true. one is 4.30x4.35 so i cant just replace with a circle... overkill?

[Dadgad]

Create a copy of a few of your drawings, using the Save AS function, then try OVERKILL on them, and see what you think.

So, you don't want to have to redo 10,000 drawings? Go figure!

 

It would be helpful if you could post a typicl drawing, minus any proprietary information, so that forum members can really help to wrestle with the issues at hand.

 

I have to go downstairs and make breakfast for my kids and drive my oldest to school.

If you haven't already solved your problem, and you post a sample, I will be happy to check it out when I get back.

[Billy V]

sorry, i am very new. what is a fw?

[Dadgad]

A typo, few.

[Billy V]

i hope this will work. when it is exploded you can see my problem.

i dont know how to use the overkill.

circle 01.dxf

[Dadgad]

i hope this will work. when it is exploded you can see my problem.

i dont know how to use the overkill.

 

You know the old gag, you told your doctor it hurts when you do this? And his response was "well, then don't do that."

Upon opening your .dxf, and selecting everything in the image, my Quick Properties display tells me that there are exactly 3 entities, selected.

2 of those are circles, and the other one is a closed polyline. That surprised me, as I expected to see lots of digital flotsam.

That tells me that the drawing is exactly as I wanted to make it. Clean & light, with closed Polylines.

 

When I exploded everything, I wound up with 208 lines and 2 circles.

 

Short answer, Don't do that!

At least in this example you appear to be totally good to go, without doing a thing.

Here's hoping that this is a fair indicator, and representative of all of the other files, with which you were concerned.

 

I suggest you turn on your Quick Properties palette, by entering QP at the commandline.

Open any drawing, and select everything in modelspace, either with a crossing window selection, or by entering CTRL + A at the commandline.

Then look at the quick properties display, and it will report the number of entities which were selected.

If you click on the little arrow next to that total, a drop down menu appears which will itemize all of those entities.

 

Should you need to use the OVERKILL command, or any other command, for that matter, read the commandline prompts carefully, as that is telling you what you need to do. Using Overkill, I would probably just use the default settings that are shown when the Overkill dialog box opens, at least until such a time as you better understand what it is that you are trying to achieve.

 

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Edited August 9, 2016 by Dadgad

[Dadgad]

I just noticed that you had posted two other examples in your first post.

Same situation in those, lovely closed polylines, and circles.

Don't explode them, they ain't broke neither.

 

There are lots of vertices however.

Not sure if that is the REAL problem?

A circle will only have the four quadrant vertices display, a complex polyline, likely generated from a SPLINE, will have a lot more.

[Billy V]

Ok, when I put this circle in dimondnest so I can tool it. i need to put tabs on two sides so it doesn't fall in the waste.

as it is now the segments are too small.

circle 01.dxf

[Dadgad]

If you eve get stuck in Autocad, a great place to look for answers is in the SYSVDLG box.

Just enter that SYSVDLG at the commandline, ad the dialog which describes all of the System Variables will open.

 

Scroll through the names until you see one that sounds like it might be appropriate.

If you get close to the one you want, just use the keyboard arrows to scroll quickly up or down the list to search for the correct one.

 

If you change the current value of a variable, you will need to confirm it with the OK button at the bottom of the dialog box. It is a good ide to also use the SAVE ALL button to create an .svf (system variable file) which will contain all of your current settings, including whatever customizations you run. Later, ther will come a time when you will be glad you did this. Put it where you will be able to find it, and use it to either restore your settings, if something gets out of whack, or to share or transfer you personal favorite setup to a friend or another computer.

 

A few of the grip settings which are most frequently tweaked by users, when setting up personal user profiles, can be found in OPTIONS, on the Selection tab. The GRIPSIZE is one of those available there.

[Dadgad]

When you say tabs, do you mean the GRIPS?

The blue boxes which show the locations of the indivual vertices, as I assumed before my previous post?

[SLW210]

Dadgad,

Tabs are connecting points that do not get cut out on the laser.

[Dadgad]

Thanks SLW, I kind of thought that might have been what was going on, when I read about not falling into the waste.

 

Well that should be easy to do, by stretching out one of, or a few of the midpoint snaps.

I'm going to give that a try now.

 

Easily done, I stretched out a centrally located tab, added a vertex, and then squared them up.

Edited August 9, 2016 by Dadgad

[SLW210]

Billy V,

 

If these are not true circles, I do not believe you will be able to clean them up too much.

 

The second sign y.dxf has 2200 entities, after cleaning in my water jet software it has 1488, it removed 712 unnecessary dots. In the real world, is that really going to save much time?

 

What software does your laser cutter use? Are you manually tabbing these?

[SLW210]

I moved your thread to the AutoLISP, Visual LISP & DCL Forum, maybe someone can come up with something to run through them and remove some of the extra dots.

[Dadgad]

SLW, is there a reason why these DO need to be exploded?

I did notice that the holes were not aligned properly along the Y Axis, so I rotated the whole image slightly.

[SLW210]

My software, as do many for cutting, just reads (and converts circles, splines, polylines, etc. to) only lines and arcs. Any type of curve is translated into a bunch of very small lines anyway when being cut.

[Billy V]

well, i took the easy way, i removed about 10 dots on 2 different sides. at the same time the software still reads all of the little lines. and you can see all of the lines when it cuts very slow. for the software diamond nest.... here is a pic. you can see how the software tabs.