Flattening complex vector image?

[bjones]

Hiya.. got an issue I can't seem to resolve here

I drew a vector art file in illustrator, took months to do. Very complex and approximately 6 feet by 3 feet in size. So, all done vectoring and imported into Flexi for cutting (making stencils of the art) and it seems every time I did a merge in illustrator it created duplicate line art on many pieces. The duplicate lines cause the cutter to cut the same line multiple times, in some places cutting through the mask and the backing altogether Short of going one by one for thousands of small pieces is there a way to tell flexi to just weld any overlaps and flatten the image? or can it be done in illustrator?

Think of it like a square, drawn over the top of another square, but thousands of times. That is oversimplifying it by a mile, but is still the general idea.

Any thoughts?

 

[ProWraps]

thats a tough one. especially not being able to look at the file. sounds like you will have to do quite a bit of hand clean up.

 

[mikey-Oh]

Are you importing an eps? Sometimes flexi likes to raster things and it looks like thousands of little squares.

Also, how intricate are the cuts? If it's just an outlining contour cut, I like to grab everything... copypasta, in front on a new layer and combine it all to get my outline for the contour cut

 

[bjones]

The parts that are really causing me the headaches are all compound paths in illustrator. If I uncompound I get something that doesn't work, I never realized that compound paths seem to retain all kinds of lines that you don't see.

 

[gabagoo]

thats why I always work in wire frame.

if it is as complex as you say, just print it

 

[GAC05]

I think Fred posted 2 Illy scripts here on the forum that will help with this issue.
Trying to figure out where he put them.....

wayne k
guam usa

 

[bjones]

thats why I always work in wire frame.

if it is as complex as you say, just print it

Wireframe doesn't expose overlaps of the same path as far as I can tell. I'm a stencil maker, printing isn't what i'm after.

 

[Mosh]

Months to do??? The cutter is going to cut the wireframe. Sounds like you have some part duplicated and thus are going to cut over each other. Months? Seriously??? You might need to look into eighter some training or a new line of work!

 

[bjones]

Months to do??? The cutter is going to cut the wireframe. Sounds like you have some part duplicated and thus are going to cut over each other. Months? Seriously??? You might need to look into eighter some training or a new line of work!

I'm actually quite good with illustrator, you try to vectorize a 6 foot by 3 foot piece of art. Not some dinky logo, full size artwork with all it's details. No BS autotraces, no text, no simple shapes. Of course i'm not sitting here working on one file 12 hours a day for months, but start to completion it does take that long for the sheer volume of art if not complexity.

The part about duplications being cut by the wireframe, that was what my very first post was asking about how to eliminate in the first place.

 

[RebeckaR]

Here's a link to the plugin Fred recommended. At least I hope it's the same plugin I downloaded and love so very much.
It will find and remove the redundant outlines that are created when you close a path in illy.
http://wwwmacr-sjc0.adobe.com/cfusion/exchange/index.cfm?event=extensionDetail&extid=1045579

 

[Custom_Grafx]

You may find some relief in something called the "overkill" command available in AutoCad. To my knowledge, this is the only solution available which addresses your problem directly.