DeskProto user forum

Hello Lex,

i am currently preparing a larger inlay with a complex shape. To skip machining the large inside and outside areas i created offset paths in inkscape. (Waiting for 8.1 ;-)

This required a lot of back and forth until everything looks good. With most changes i had to select the curves again.
I tried using layers, but SVG layers were not imported.
(Writing this i realised i could export dxf from inkscape which seems to work...)

Other wish: quick way to reload vectory/geometry files.

Nils

Hi Nils,

Thanks for making improvement suggestions!
We have already been working on supporting layers in SVG files, and this will be present in the next bugfix update (we do not yet have a date set for that update).

Reloading CAD files is already possible, in the Project settings: tabs Vector, Geometry and Bitmap each contain a button 'Reload'.

Success with your inlay project !

Lex.

Hi Lex,

i am looking forward for the update.

For the reload i meant a direct menu item or keyboard shortcut to reload. When changing the source file often i had to open the project dialog a lot of times ;-)
When curves are referenced by layer, a reload should directly allow new toolpaths / preview to be generated. This would be a really fast iteration cycle.

Nils

Hi Nils.

OK, now I understand the reload request. I will add this our wish list (which is quite long). Perhaps a shortcut or a button to reload all CAD data.
Note that after reloading CAD data all toolpaths will become invalid and need to be calculated again. For vector data an extra step may be needed, as after editing a curve it will no longer be recognized in a custom curve selection.

Lex.

I find myself often reloading the CAD data along with Nils. Usually it's realizing the carving would work better if I'd just done something a little different.

Steve

Hi Lex,

thanks. Thats exactly what i ment.

Thats why i think the option to select toolpaths by CAD layer is so brilliant. The selection will stay even if the curve is deleted and recreated in CAD. (for example offset curves)

I was constantly adjusting offset curves this weekend. Putting them on seperate layers will make this a very fast feedback cycle.

Recalculating toolpaths takes some time but is unavoidable and basically the point why i want to reload the CAD data.

By the way something i learned the hard way: If you need an offset curve with an exact offset value, the only sane way is to have no scaling applied along the way. As soon as i realised that it was much easier.

Nils

Hi Lex,

i just saw the new build with support for SVG layers. Thanks.

In the selection DP shows the layer ids. The layer names are in a custom inkscape namespace, so i guess there is no standard way for SVG layer names.

For the next project with may files this would allow creating multiple SVGs and just swapping the SVG in DP.

Sadly inkscape seems to assign the first layer the id "layer1" and the following layers in sequence globally over multiple files. So it will still require some planning to have layer ids match. (Or editing the SVG which is easy)

As for my project: it turned out well. I really needed to rough out material, because a v-carve bit does not want to remove a lot of it. For this i needed the offset curves from inkscape.

Nils

Hi Nils,

Happy to hear that the new SVG layer option already has been used - successfully.
Using standard names indeed is not ideal - you can try a request to Inkscape...

Anyway: nice results !

Lex.