Am I crazy or is this an unreasonable wait for pathing?

[Locust]

Trying to bang out some holiday stuff for a craft fair coming up. Limped fusion thru this job without managing to make it crash but now I can't get it to finish generating a path. It's been stuck on 5% for over an hour at this point and this is after trying to make it easier by going back and opening up some tight holes and narrow slots. It's actually worse. I let it go last night and it fusion made it to about 75% before I think my computer went into sleep mode. Disappointing way to start my day today. I'm sure those snowflakes are screwing me, but I'm really just hoping this software will just fix itself and do what it's supposed to

[Locust]

I let it run overnight. 5%. Software hasn't crashed, it just doesn't work. Fusion has been such a letdown.

[kicktillmonday]

I have been pretty happy with Fusion but have experienced exactly what you are in the past. I find this happens when the node count in the dxf is really high, it takes forever to process and sometimes just never can complete it. I bet there are 10k-30k nodes in that design or something.

I have had success with node reduction in the past to make Fusion handle the design and would be happy to see if I can do it with your design if you want to post it.

[acourtjester]

I have not started with Fusion360 yet you may look at Inkscape for a 2 D drawing like that. Each element can be created separately and then copy and paste into a finished drawing for the file. IMHO

[Locust]

I have not started with Fusion360 yet you may look at Inkscape for a 2 D drawing like that. Each element can be created separately and then copy and paste into a finished drawing for the file. IMHO

Those started in inkscape and were imported as SVGs that I then extruded into a solid.

I have been pretty happy with Fusion but have experienced exactly what you are in the past. I find this happens when the node count in the dxf is really high, it takes forever to process and sometimes just never can complete it. I bet there are 10k-30k nodes in that design or something.

I have had success with node reduction in the past to make Fusion handle the design and would be happy to see if I can do it with your design if you want to post it.

I'd really appreciate it if you could show me how to modify files like these so they work. I've created other complex designs that I've really struggled with and if there are any tricks to fixing them, I'm all ears.

[acourtjester]

Ok so from what you stated you are using Fusion360 to create your G-code, I know other have done that but I use SheetCam after Inkscape. Maybe another member who used fusion will chime in. I am going to see if I can help with your above image.

[acourtjester]

Ok after looking at some things, here is why you have so many nodes. On the right is a simple outline like you did but you can see the node count is greatly different. I think the way you constructed the drawing added all the nodes. I let Inkscape shape the circles and square and then used the union tool to combine them. I think lettering and clip art could be added in a way so you done have the large amount of nodes. After adding the Happy Holidays I the simplified it to remove lots of node from it.

[kicktillmonday]

Node reduction is what I do and I learned how to do it in my CorelDraw from this Pspider video https://www.plasmaspider.com/viewtopic. ... 5&p=226131 Has worked many times to simplify designs for fusion. Also using SVG files rather than DXF files in Fusion also helps.

I have read there is a similar function in Inkscape called Simplify Nodes which may work for you in Inkscape. I am not an Inkscape user so maybe Acourtjester, Adbuch, or one of the other resident pros will chime in on that.

[acourtjester]

locust if you post the SVG file maybe I can look at it and see if I can rework it to a more usable file for you. If you created if from separate clips then post those and I will try to configure them into one drawing.

[Locust]

Ok after looking at some things, here is why you have so many nodes. On the right is a simple outline like you did but you can see the node count is greatly different. I think the way you constructed the drawing added all the nodes. I let Inkscape shape the circles and square and then used the union tool to combine them. I think lettering and clip art could be added in a way so you done have the large amount of nodes. After adding the Happy Holidays I the simplified it to remove lots of node from it.
christmas3.JPG
christmas 2.JPG

I don't understand where you got the images of all the nodes from. There are a bunch of nodes in my project obviously, but nothing close to the example you've shared.

If you guys want to see if you can make any of those SVGs import with fewer nodes, here are those files.

trees.svg

(23.42 KiB) Downloaded 59 times

snowflake3.svg

(17.24 KiB) Downloaded 67 times

snowflake2.svg

(9.24 KiB) Downloaded 59 times

snowflake1.svg

(19.82 KiB) Downloaded 62 times

elk1.svg

(43.79 KiB) Downloaded 64 times

[kicktillmonday]

I opened all of your SVG designs in Fusion 360 and each one of them worked great and Fusion was able to extrude each one in a matter of seconds so I don't see any issues with these individual designs. Maybe something is different in the full design you originally posted about but without seeing that exact file I am unsure. The individual files are great.

[acourtjester]

I got that from a trace using the screen shot of you image post. You attached image above does show a lot less. One thing to keep in mind is each node is a line of code in the G-code.
I opened one snowflake of your in Inkscape, look at the attached images. I shows many nodes that are not needed and broken over lapping lines. Many of the node in the middle of a line can be removed without loss of shape too. I don't know if these are from clip art or you drew them, but there is a lot of clean up that can be done for improved reduction of nodes. This may be why you conversion had lockup problems.

snowflake ff.JPG (46.5 KiB) Viewed 5099 times

snowflake aa.JPG (119.82 KiB) Viewed 5099 times

snowflake bb.JPG (102.03 KiB) Viewed 5099 times

snowflake dd.JPG (125.51 KiB) Viewed 5099 times

[Locust]

I got that from a trace using the screen shot of you image post. You attached image above does show a lot less. One thing to keep in mind is each node is a line of code in the G-code.
I opened one snowflake of your in Inkscape, look at the attached images. I shows many nodes that are not needed and broken over lapping lines. Many of the node in the middle of a line can be removed without loss of shape too. I don't know if these are from clip art or you drew them, but there is a lot of clean up that can be done for improved reduction of nodes. This may be why you conversion had lockup problems.
snowflake ff.JPG
snowflake aa.JPG
snowflake bb.JPG
snowflake dd.JPG

Like I said, I imported those SVG's and extruded them. I've been trying to go back thru and clean up those lines but it's excruciatingly slow since every mouse click takes a second or so for fusion to process. I got thru the snowflake on the left last night and then fusion started freezing (disappointing as there are now FEWER points to process) and at that point I decided it was time to shut down for the night.

I opened all of your SVG designs in Fusion 360 and each one of them worked great and Fusion was able to extrude each one in a matter of seconds so I don't see any issues with these individual designs. Maybe something is different in the full design you originally posted about but without seeing that exact file I am unsure. The individual files are great.

I would put money on it that it's the sum of parts not the individual components that are causing the issue, also, the issue isn't extruding. I can get that far. The issue is pathing in the manufacturing tab. Eight hours of idle time for my pc to work on it and I wake up in the morning and the progress is still sitting at 5%? Not good. WORSE that it happened after already reducing a few points and opening up tight areas that I expected fusion to have to skip. Before those modifications I managed to get to 75% complete.


I'm going to continue to work on cleaning up the excess nodes and I think in the future I'll load components to their own files, clean them up before fusion grinds to a glacial pace, and then bring them together in the main file.
To my original point though, I have no love for fusion. It's stupid that I have to do this, or that there isn't a less manually intensive way to correct it. Unfortunately, I'm stuck with it until I can find a post for a Langmuir cutter on another platform.

[acourtjester]

There is something I don't understand (I don't use Fusion OK) why are you extruding the drawing is that the only way you can get a G-code?? I only extrude drawing for 3-D printing, never for G-code generations.
Next I have attached an image of the snowflake in SheetCam and attached a G-code for it for you to try loading on the Langmuir as a test.
You may want to look into buying SheetCam to use I think you will see a big improvement to your G-code generations.

snowflake3.rar

(8.3 KiB) Downloaded 57 times

[kicktillmonday]

My bad, not sure why I thought you were hung up on extruding when it was generating your toolpath that was the issue. If you find any way improve the performance would certainly be happy hear about that.

[Locust]

There is something I don't understand (I don't use Fusion OK) why are you extruding the drawing is that the only way you can get a G-code?? I only extrude drawing for 3-D printing, never for G-code generations.
Next I have attached an image of the snowflake in SheetCam and attached a G-code for it for you to try loading on the Langmuir as a test.
You may want to look into buying SheetCam to use I think you will see a big improvement to your G-code generations.
snowflake3.rar
snow sheetcn.JPG
snow sheetcn1.JPG

I'm extruding so that I can make one click for "face contours" and highlight all the edges that need to be cut

The thickness I extrude to is irrelevant but I usually set it to whatever the thickness of the material is I intend to cut the design in. It helps to visualize what the finished product will look like.

snowiso.png (33.64 KiB) Viewed 4963 times

Thickness doesn't matter because I'm going to set my travel speed based off the material thickness from my tool library and material being cut.

rather than go around to each edge, select it, make sure I'm cutting on the correct side of the line, and generally waste time creating my cut selection.

I have to use Fusion because Langmuir built their post for Fusion. I'm not aware of a post processor for any other CAM package to run their machines.

I'm curious what results I'll get running your code on my machine, I'll try that tomorrow (Saturday) and report back.

BTW, the single unmodified (extra nodes) snowflake took about 5-6 seconds for Fusion to process a path for on it's own, reinforcing that it's a problem with the number of features, not the individual components that cause the pathing issue.

pathed.png (70.74 KiB) Viewed 4963 times

[djreiswig]

Looks like they have one for SheetCam for the Fire control software. I assume that's what you're using.
https://www.langmuirsystems.com/software/sheetcam

SheetCam is very simple to use.

[ROKCRLER]

Fusion is painful for post. I got sheetcam hours after trying with Fusion when i started with my crossfire, theyve had a post for sheetcam before i started in 2019.
I know youve been using Fusion, so dont take the sheetcam suggestions personally, but time is money right, in that 8 hours what else could you have done.

Sheetcam will show you errors, duplicates and open ends, plus processes large complex files in seconds.

[Locust]

I must have misunderstood something when I first got my Langmuir machine, I was under the impression that SheetCAM was available for legacy machines but the new version required Fusion. I'll definitely look into it.

[ROKCRLER]

Here ya go
https://www.langmuirsystems.com/downloads