Am I missing something here???

[Robert Walters]

In CAD/CAM programs I use when you are cutting out nested pieces like a wheel (a circle in a circle), It looks at the drawing and does the inner pieces, then moves to the outside pieces.

In Corel X4, I drew two nested circles, but the outside one ALWAYS gets cut first.

I even tried drawing the inside circle first, then the outside one.
Still the outside gets cut first.

Could this be a bug?




Also....

When you are only using a portion of a full sheet, but don't want to delete the previous artwork, how do you prevent it from being lasered?

I know I can just "printed selected", but is there a more elegant solution?
I tried doing layers, but when printing is says "hidden layers will be printed".

[Doug Griffith]

I was going to suggest layers to solve both of your questions but it sounds like there is something else going on. Otherwise, under the vector tab there is a sort option. Or use color mapping.

This is from an Epilog user but I've seen the ULS driver.

[Gary Hair]

Robert,
If you just send a file to your laser from corel it will cut from the bottom of your object manager list to the top. My laser has an option for "vector sorting" that will cut nested pieces first then the outer pieces. Chances are yours has something similar. If not, you'll have to reorder them in Corel. It's not a bug, Corel isn't really designed with lasers in mind and it's not a cad/cam program, so it isn't really something Corel should address.

Gary

[Lee DeRaud]

In Corel X4, I drew two nested circles, but the outside one ALWAYS gets cut first.

I even tried drawing the inside circle first, then the outside one.
Still the outside gets cut first.

Could this be a bug?

There's a 'vector optimization' drop-down in the 'advanced' tab of the driver. Turning it off will put everything into "Corel order": bottom-to-top, "bottom" in this case being "first drawn". Why the ULS driver sorts what appears to be backwards, I have no idea, but I've seen some very odd behavior when sorting is turned on.

When you are only using a portion of a full sheet, but don't want to delete the previous artwork, how do you prevent it from being lasered?

I know I can just "printed selected", but is there a more elegant solution?
I tried doing layers, but when printing is says "hidden layers will be printed".

I always just use 'print selected', but IIRC you can make layers non-printing in the Object Manager docker: at least in X4 or later, 'hidden' and 'printable' are separate settings.

[Robert Walters]

I didn't realize that corel prints bottom-to-top in the object manager.

Thanks, I found the vector settings...

SORT ONLY 
• All open path vectors are output first
• Closed paths will follow, beginning with the innermost closed path and
 ending with the outermost closed path.

I wasn't implying that Corel had a bug, but if the ULS driver did.

Print Selected seems the simplest, but doesn't make sense if you are laying out for name badges (as example), as you would want to layout the cutting border for the whole sheet, then "fill in the blanks" and cut out as needed.

Maybe I could just promote new items to a new layer, and disable printing of the other layers, and repeat the process every time I get a new batch to do.

Thanks again everyone!

[Lee DeRaud]

I didn't realize that corel prints bottom-to-top in the object manager.

I guess it makes more sense if you think of it as printing "back-to-front", so background stuff prints first and is covered later by foreground stuff. But it displays the object list newest (front/foreground) first.

[Robert Walters]

I guess it makes more sense if you think of it as printing "back-to-front", so background stuff prints first and is covered later by foreground stuff. But it displays the object list newest (front/foreground) first.

Yeah, I figured it was based upon creation order. I just didn't realize that Corel output bottom-to-top is all.

Since the ULS print driver has vector sorting (that I did read about but totally forgot) and is now enabled, no more having to think about creation order =)

[Dan Hintz]

Since the ULS print driver has vector sorting (that I did read about but totally forgot) and is now enabled, no more having to think about creation order =)

Not so fast. Vector ordering in the ULS driver is designed to make vectoring as fast as possible by reducing the number of movements... it isn't designed to cut out inner-most objects first (or at least it never appeared that intelligent to me, though I don't often use it). Just be aware, if you need a specific order to a cut, it's up to you to create it by changing object order in Corel.

[Scott Shepherd]

Enhance will get them cut inside out. That's in the same area as "sort". Typically, Enhance and Sort should be selected.

[Lee DeRaud]

Vector ordering in the ULS driver is designed to make vectoring as fast as possible by reducing the number of movements... it isn't designed to cut out inner-most objects first (or at least it never appeared that intelligent to me, though I don't often use it).

"Intelligent" isn't an adjective I'd apply to that algorithm..."creative" maybe describes it better. It does things like break closed-path curve entities into multiple chunks, or alternate between clockwise and counterclockwise for no apparent reason when cutting a row of identical circles.

[Robert Walters]

Quoted from the driver manual:

-----
Vector Optimizer
The four available selections apply to vector output only and have no effect on raster images. Regardless
of which of the following selections you choose, vectors are grouped by pen color and will always output
in the color order listed in the printer driver.

OFF
Turns off this feature.

ENHANCE ONLY
The printer driver collects all the vectors from the application software and reconstructs them (so
to speak) by removing start and stop points within the vector curves so that they run smoother
with less jitter. It has no effect on straight, horizontal or vertical, lines

SORT ONLY
The printer driver collects all the vectors from the application software, stores them in temporary
memory, sorts them, and the outputs them in the following order:
• All open path vectors are output first (not closed path vectors like circles and squares)
beginning with the end point of the vector path that is closest to the current position of the
focus carriage. All subsequent open vector paths are output using the same “nearest
neighbor” starting point method which eliminates the random “vector hopping” that
causes longer processing times.
• Closed paths will follow, beginning with the innermost closed path and ending with the
outermost closed path. This is particularly useful in an elevated cutting application to
prevent the outer piece from falling first. The beginning point of a closed path is
automatically selected by the printer driver by the “nearest neighbor” vector path that has
the steepest angle in the Y-axis direction.

ENHANCE AND SORT
This turns on both features simultaneously.
-----

That's exactly what I needed, cut the inner before the outter drops out.

[Dan Hintz]

Lee, it did "interesting" things for me the last few times I tried it... since it's not a huge part of my work, I haven't bothered to play with it much more.

[Deane Shepard]

Robert - I have a Universal M-360 and Corel X3. I always use the color mappings to determine what cuts first. I make the power settings for red and blue the same and use red for my inner cuts and blue for the outer cuts. My understanding is that it processes the colors in order from top to bottom of the palette. So the all red vectors get cut, then all the blue. All of the other stuff you were finding in the manual may determine what it cuts first from all of the "red" vectors, but, at least on my system, it ALWAYS cuts red, then blue. On one or two complex deals I have used three or four colors, but it always processes the color palette from top to bottom - and I never worry about the object order or the driver sort settings.

On your other point, I always do "print selected" to make sure that I am only processing the specific objects I want sent to the laser. Even when I am doing a full sheet, I select everything and do print selected. When I bought the machine, the rep said that was a good practice to follow and it has always worked well for me.

Deane Shepard
ULS M-360

[Doug Griffith]

It doesn't make sense to me why hidden layers would still be "printed". I'm glad Epilog does not work that way. How about creating masking layers where white elements block what you do not want to print.

[Lee DeRaud]

It doesn't make sense to me why hidden layers would still be "printed". I'm glad Epilog does not work that way.

Unless you're talking about something completely different, Epilog does "work that way": the hiding and/or printing of layers is completely under Corel's control, not the laser's driver. As for why someone would want to print a hidden layer, I agree that capability is pretty much useless for laserheads, but Corel wasn't really designed with us in mind.

How about creating masking layers where white elements block what you do not want to print.

That works for raster elements, but not for vectors, and IIRC that phenomenon is true for Epilog as well as ULS drivers.