what do you hate about your software?

[Custom_Grafx]

There are a few other things you can do if you want to get the line/stroke out of a raster in Ai. You can select "stroke" instead of "fill" in trace options. If you have a good base file (and a CAD file is usually clean enough), then you'll get a half decent line drawing drawn as a stroke.

I know the method you mention about expanding a path and welding them together, but that gives you a double line, which creates more work because you need to then delete them all.

CAD does a great job at removing those duplicate lines and combining little segments of overlaps too.

I don't understand why Illustrator or Corel don't have this feature, that's all. I mean, you can sit there all day and pick at objects one by one but it's really not the way I'd like to spend most of my day.

There should be a tool that allows you to simply select all, delete overlapping lines, and that's that... which is what CAD does really well.

I'm sure one day someone will incorporate these all into some great open source program... the great thing about inkscape is, that it probably let's people do all this kind of thing if they have the knowledge to write it.

If Corel/Adobe are reading this forum, well all I can say is, what a great opportunity to dazzle your users! A huge wishlist of features that would make their day!

 

[GAC05]

One tool in Corel does a pretty good job of this but is not automatic or 100% foolproof.
Add a new layer on top of the dwg/dfx base layer.
From this new layer use the "Smart Fill Tool" to create closed shapes with single clicks per shape.
Change colors and or add new layers if you want to later cut/plot by layer or color.
Once you have all the shapes you want delete the base dwg/dxf layer with all the unwanted open/over-lapping/duplicate lines & shapes.
What is left on the top layer(s) are all closed shapes that should need very little or no cleanup edits to cut correctly.
Does not always work, depending on the source file, but has saved me hours and hours of clean up on files that were not generated with plotting being the intended end result.

wayne k
guam usa

 

[Custom_Grafx]

One tool in Corel does a pretty good job of this but is not automatic or 100% foolproof.
Add a new layer on top of the dwg/dfx base layer.
From this new layer use the "Smart Fill Tool" to create closed shapes with single clicks per shape.
Change colors and or add new layers if you want to later cut/plot by layer or color.
Once you have all the shapes you want delete the base dwg/dxf layer with all the unwanted open/over-lapping/duplicate lines & shapes.
What is left on the top layer(s) are all closed shapes that should need very little or no cleanup edits to cut correctly.
Does not always work, depending on the source file, but has saved me hours and hours of clean up on files that were not generated with plotting being the intended end result.

wayne k
guam usa

Yikes that sounds tedious too... such a simple ask you would think of a program but just non existent.

Do you have AutoCad by any chance? You can do this "automatically" in a very short amount of time. It is also not fullproof but does a damn fine job in general.

 

[Ken]

The Corel Object Manager allows you delete overlapping lines easily.
Try this..
Create a line or object....let's say a rectangle. Do a copy/paste...you will have both objects on top of each other but you can only see one. Open Object Manager...you will see a list of all the objects on that layer. When you click on one of the objects in the list it will appear on your work page as highlighted. Just right click on the listed item and delete. (or hit the delete button)
Ken

 

[Custom_Grafx]

The Corel Object Manager allows you delete overlapping lines easily.
Try this..
Create a line or object....let's say a rectangle. Do a copy/paste...you will have both objects on top of each other but you can only see one. Open Object Manager...you will see a list of all the objects on that layer. When you click on one of the objects in the list it will appear on your work page as highlighted. Just right click on the listed item and delete. (or hit the delete button)
Ken

You can do that in Illustrator too, in the layers pallette.

Try doing that with a file which has 1,457 objects... actually do it for around 4 files like that, where you have different shapes/objects. And make a 3 hour deadline... including the cutting.

 

[GAC05]

Yikes that sounds tedious too... such a simple ask you would think of a program but just non existent.

Do you have AutoCad by any chance? You can do this "automatically" in a very short amount of time. It is also not fullproof but does a damn fine job in general.

I don't own AutoCad but I do have Rhino3d that does a pretty nice job of exporting dxf/dwg out to ai with hidden line removal.

A fully automatic solution would be best, but then again you loose some control - similar to trying to get a good auto trace.

The attached dwg is not exactly complex but did import into Corel as 450 individual open paths on 8 layers.
Took just a minute or two using Smart Fill to reduce it down to 30 closed shapes, grouped by color, without having to do any node editing..
You can see in the wire frame that all the fillets are preserved and there are no unneeded stray nodes.

wayne k
guam usa

 

[Custom_Grafx]

I don't own AutoCad but I do have Rhino3d that does a pretty nice job of exporting dxf/dwg out to ai with hidden line removal.

A fully automatic solution would be best, but then again you loose some control - similar to trying to get a good auto trace.

The attached dwg is not exactly complex but did import into Corel as 450 individual open paths on 8 layers.
Took just a minute or two using Smart Fill to reduce it down to 30 closed shapes, grouped by color, without having to do any node editing..
You can see in the wire frame that all the fillets are preserved and there are no unneeded stray nodes.

wayne k
guam usa

Very cool!

Is hidden line removal like the "flatten" command in AutoCAD I wonder?

The command I use to remove duplicate lines in CAD is called "Overkill".

 

[Custom_Grafx]

I also found out the other day that it can create single connecting lines out of a grid consisting of butted up squares/rectangles. This isn't too hard to recreate in Illy or Corel, but when you have arbitrary polygons butted up it is a real pain. But your solution in Corel with the paint fill could work well too.

 

[signmeup]

Nice tip Wayne.