Several drawings

A project can hold several DXFs, for example two parts cut from one sheet, besides its images and the shapes you draw. Each DXF has its own place, turn and scale, and is updated from its own file.

chipload dxf add part.chipload lid.dxf --name lid     # a second DXF, where its file has it
chipload dxf list part.chipload                       # id, name, file, placement, size
chipload place part.chipload --dxf 2 --by 250,0       # move, turn or scale that one
chipload update part.chipload --from lid.dxf --dxf 2  # a new version of that one
chipload dxf remove part.chipload 2                   # it and its shapes

In the app: File > Add DXF to project…, or drop the DXF on the window.

In the Browser

The Drawing folder of the Browser lists what the project’s shapes come from:

• Each DXF, with its layers inside.
• Each image.
• The shapes drawn in Chipload, by kind: rectangles, circles, polylines.

• A click selects the whole group, or one layer of one DXF; Ctrl+click adds. An operation added from it cuts only that (its selector names the DXF or image). A DXF or picture also shows its properties: position and scale, or size and place.
• Right-click has the rest:
  • For a DXF: Place… (its properties: Placing the drawing), Update from a DXF… or from a path…, and Remove.
  • For an image: Trace settings… (also a double-click) and Remove.
• The eye hides a group or a layer on the canvas: it isn’t drawn and can’t be clicked. Hidden shapes are still cut. An operation that cuts some says so on its row (“3 hidden · T1”), and its toolpath still shows. To stop cutting them, untick the operation.
• Saved: what is hidden is saved in the project (drawing.hidden). Changing it is a step you can undo.

File > Update drawing from DXF… works while the project has one DXF. With several, update each from its row’s right-click menu.

• Where it goes: a new DXF lands where its file has it, often on top of the first. Place it afterwards.
• Which one: with several DXFs, place and update need --dxf ID. With one, they work as before.
• Name: the file’s name without its extension, unless you give --name. A second copy of the same file is named “part 2”.
• Removing a DXF removes its shapes. The report names the operations that used them; they can’t run until you give them geometry again.

What an operation selects

An operation selects a DXF or image as a whole, a layer within one, or shapes:

"select": {"dxf": 2}                       // all of part B, whatever its layers
"select": {"dxf": 2, "layer": "HOLES"}     // part B's holes
"select": {"image": 1}                     // a traced picture
"select": {"image": 1, "exclude": [863]}   // the picture but one of its shapes
"select": {"shapes": [12, 14]}             // these shapes

A DXF or an image selected as a whole, or one of its layers, follows the DXF when it is updated and the picture when it is traced again. In the app:

• A click on a DXF or image in the Browser picks the whole DXF or image.
• A click on a layer in the Browser, or right-click Select layer on the canvas, picks that layer of that DXF only.
• Leaving some out: with a whole DXF or picture selected, Ctrl+click a contour on the canvas to leave it out, and again to put it back. The selection then reads “image 1, 1 left out”, and the operation’s selector gets exclude.

When a picture is traced again (a new size, place or setting), its shapes get new numbers. Left-out shapes are found again by where they sit in the picture, and the report says so. One that can’t be found (the tracing changed too much) gives a problem, and nothing is generated until you pick the shapes to leave out again. Ctrl+Z undoes the retrace.

Adding a DXF never changes what an existing operation cuts. An operation that selected a layer by its name alone, made while the project had one DXF, keeps cutting that DXF when the new one has the same layer. The report says so: Operations 1, 2 keep cutting part only.

A selector with a layer and no DXF (written by hand, or by Chipload before 0.16) means that layer in every DXF. When a layer is in more than one, the report says so: layer “HOLES” is in lid and part; it cuts all of them.

The setup sheet lists every DXF and image with where it was put, when there is more than one.