Exploding a DXF, joining ends

A DXF’s shapes are read-only: they change only when the DXF is updated. To rework them in Chipload, explode the DXF: its shapes become drawn shapes, with handles, values you can type, copy, mirror and delete, like the ones you draw.

Explode

Right-click the DXF in the Browser, Explode into shapes…, or Explode… in its properties.

• The project forgets the DXF file. It leaves the Browser, and Update from DXF is no longer possible for these shapes. Ctrl+Z undoes it until the project is saved; after that, the only way back is adding the DXF again.
• Circles stay circles; everything else becomes a polyline of straight and arc segments. An arc of more than half a circle becomes two segments.
• Operations keep cutting the same shapes, with the same G-code. The shapes keep their ids and layers. An operation that selected a layer of that DXF now selects its shapes by number, so a layer of the same name elsewhere doesn’t join in; the report lists these.
• Circles that the placement turned start at their right-hand point afterwards, as every drawn circle does, so the cut may start elsewhere on them. The report names them.

Tick Join ends closer than to join the exploded lines straight away (below).

Join ends

A drawing made of separate lines and arcs whose ends almost meet can’t be pocketed: each piece is an open contour. Draw > Join ends… joins open drawn polylines whose ends lie closer than the gap into one, and closes a chain that comes back to its start.

• The selected shapes, or every drawn shape when none is selected.
• Gap: 0.01 mm unless you type another, at most 1 mm. Both ends move to the point between them; a shape moves by at most half the gap.
• Same layer only. Pieces on different layers stay apart.
• Only clear pairs. Where three or more ends meet within the gap, nothing joins there: which way the outline goes would be a guess. The report gives the point.
• The joined shape keeps the lowest id of its pieces; operations that selected any of them select it.
• The report says how many shapes became how many, the widest gap closed, and the ends still open with the distance to the nearest other end: the gap that would close them.

On the command line

chipload dxf explode part.chipload                  # the project's only DXF
chipload dxf explode part.chipload 2 --join 0.05mm  # DXF 2, then join ends closer than 0.05 mm
chipload shape join part.chipload                   # every drawn shape, gap 0.01 mm
chipload shape join part.chipload 12 13 14 --gap 0.1

With --json, shapes lists the shapes that came of it and removed those joined into others.