Optimize Pen Plotting

Long before there were ink jet plotters we used wet pens. During that time is was essential to optimize the pen movement. Now I find I have to do layouts for laser cutting parts from balsa wood and the cutter movement is now costing 30 cents per minute (if not more).

So it is critical to have the laser move in a most efficient manner. I have been told to go through a long an torturous process of Xrefing and blocking and all sorts of cross referencing but am loath to do so. I seem to recall the good old days of dried out pens and either a third party program that took the DXF file or even worked within Acad on the DWG file to optimize (catenate really) the drawing entities.

Any ideas or lost memories on this?

 

Almost lost... but if I remember well, this was available in the (HP?) pen
plotter drivers in AutoCAD; you could choose from a handful levels of
optimization. If the laser cutter can work with HPGL (?), perhaps an idea to
get an old copy of AutoCAD for this (laser cutter plotting) purpose.

Govert

is was essential to optimize the pen movement. Now I find I have to do
layouts for laser cutting parts from balsa wood and the cutter movement is
now costing 30 cents per minute (if not more).

have been told to go through a long an torturous process of Xrefing and
blocking and all sorts of cross referencing but am loath to do so. I seem to
recall the good old days of dried out pens and either a third party program
that took the DXF file or even worked within Acad on the DWG file to
optimize (catenate really) the drawing entities.

 

Pen optimizations were available for any pen plotter - not just for HP's.
It was part of the standard configuration for any method of plotting using
Acad's ADI drivers.

Of course the ADI driver standard is gone now, totally replaced with HDI
drivers since at least Acad2000.

Joel