Reordering for a laser cutter

[nic]

I have a 500mm square page which has about 1000 circles drawn, which will be cut out by a laser cutter to give a template with 1000 (non touching) holes.

The circles were created in a random order and the laser cutter is charged on a time basis so I would like to reorder the circles so as not to waste time with the cutting head going backwards and forwards to cut the next hole.

This is the code as it stands but I get an error on running it -
unexpected error while executing method coVGshape:: OrderToBack

any help?

Sub neworder()

Dim x As Double, y As Double, Rd As Double ' x,y co ordinates and radius of area to be checked
Dim myselection As Shape ' shapes found in selected area
ActiveDocument.Unit = cdrMillimeter 'Set Corel to work in Millimeters
ActiveDocument.ReferencePoint = cdrCenter

Set myselection = Nothing

Rd = 22 ' radius of area to be selected

Optimization = True ' turn off updating the screen etc.

For y = 1 To 500 Step 10
For x = 1 To 500 Step 10

Set myselection = ActivePage.SelectShapesFromRectangle(x - Rd, y - Rd, x + Rd, y + Rd, False)
If Not myselection Is Nothing Then myselection.OrderToBack


Next x
Next y

Optimization = False ' turn on updating the screen etc.
ActiveWindow.Refresh

End Sub

[runflacruiser]

Hi.

SelectShapesFromRectangle return a cdrSelectionShape which can be many.
Try referring to it like this:

If Not myselection Is Nothing Then myselection.Shapes.All.OrderToBack

or

If Not myselection Is Nothing Then myselection.Shape(1).OrderToBack

-John

[jemmyell]

Hi,

I wrote the Artwork Optimizer in collaboration with a laser guy. His test case was 6000 objects which the optimizer rearranges in less than 10 seconds.

This is a commercial tool, but affordable.

http://www.coreldrawtools.com/artwor...ard/index.html

-James Leonard

[nic]

Hi John

I think Ive managed to do this using excel to sort the circles and then recreating the image from the sorted list.

That said, the results are crude - it breaks the image into 2cm slices and orders all the circles in that strip from top to bottom (no snaking up and down).

The code
If Not myselection Is Nothing Then myselection.Shape(1).OrderToBack seems to have a syntactical error but the line

If Not myselection Is Nothing Then myselection.Shapes.All.OrderToBack

seems to work but in fact nothing has changed after the macro is run although this may be due to the other parts of the macro.

I had a look at your optimizer James which looks just like what I need. I suspect I'll be buying it.

Thanks
nic

[nic]

Hi James

Just a note to say I tried your reordering program and liked it very much.

nic

[jemmyell]

Hi nic,

Thanks for the compliment! I hope you get a lof of use out of it.

Do you use any commercial lasers that take DXF files directly?

-James

[nic]

Hi James

Yes your program really is very good. I wish I had more use for it tho! I did however recommend it to the laser cutting shop.

This is the first time Ive sent artwork for laser cutting so I cant comment yet.

Best wishes
nick