Batch Apply Tool Paths in Version 5
This approach works best when your image has many interior straight line cuts. Start by selecting the image, and the Breaking the Path. With the path broken, you can now apply tool paths to individual cuts.
On the bottom of the left side of the Torchmate CAD/CAM window, you will see an icon named Tool Path Tools. Click on this button, and the fly-out menu below will appear.
The first button from the left is for the creation of an Online Toolpath.
The middle button is for the creation of a Male Toolpath.
The button on the right is for the creation of a Female Toolpath.
Select the Eye of the fish image, and then select the icon button for Female Tool paths. A female tool path will be created for this cut, as you can see on the screen below.
Next, we will move toward applying online tool paths to the series of line cuts around the eye, and then continue moving back toward the tail fin. Select the curved arc just over the eye. With this area selected, click on the Tool Path tools icon, and then select Online Tool Path. The Online tool path will pierce on the line itself, and then move toward the opposite side of the cut, where the torch will extinguish before moving to the next tool path.
The Spot on the tail of the fish, needed to be closed before a female tool path could be applied, and therefore node editing was utilized to close this loop. Once completed the Female tool path was created. Continuing on, more online tool paths were created to finish the interior contour of the fish.
With all the interior cuts established, the exterior area is selected, and then a Male tool Path is applied to it.
Once the tool paths have been completely created for the object, turn off the Show Tool Path option in the View menu, and delete the Original image before exporting. Turn the show tool Path view on before proceeding.
Go back to the View menu, but this time select Show Tool Path Viewer, and in doing so the window below will appear.
Click the Show Order box to view the sequence of the cuts created.
You may change the sequence order of the cuts by moving you mouse cursor over the lowest number in the sequence, double clicking the area when the cursor changes into a (+) crosshair, and then entering a new value in the To Position window before pressing OK. In this example, the first cut was to be on the exterior of the image, so we have changed it to the last position in the sequence, see the image below.
Notice how the sequence lines have changed, but more importantly that the first cut in the sequence is now going to the line below the Dorsal Fin.
To double check our programming, I tested this by importing the dxf file to the driver software, and then running though it Offline. As you can see all the interior cuts were made prior to the exterior.
I hope this will help you in situations where simply making a Male tool path on the whole object won’t! Please contact Tech Support if you have any further questions.