connecting points in a drawing !!

[Danno]

Here's my problem;
-I downloaded a logo which was originally in EPS format
-It was coverted to DXF with Corel draw
-It opens fine in Dolphin Cad
-The problem is that it is not a continuous line, therefore I cannot make an NC contour
-the logo is made up from thousands of "points"
-I want to be able to join all the points to make one continuous contour
-I have been fighting with this for a few hours now, and have tried absolutely everything

[rowbare]

It sounds as though your logo was a bitmap embedded in the EPS file. When you converted it, it simply created a bunch of short line segments to match. Either that or you had a degenerate vector EPS.

Do you have the full Corel suite? There is another program in the suite called Trace or PowerTrace. It will vectorize a bitmap. I haven't used it in many years so I can't give you more specific details. Depending on your EPS file, you might have to convert it to a bitmap before you Trace it.

If you don't have the full suite, there are some free ones available as well as some online conversion services. Google "free raster to vector converter".

bob

[harley4ever]

Dolphin Partmaster is a wonderful engineering program however if you bought if for doing logos and bitmaps, it's not really what its suited for. Theres a few programs out there for like 100 bucks that are designed for that specific purpose. Coreldraw also isnt really to fond at creating good machinable files. As robware said, try googling something.

[Danno]

I bought Dolphin because I though originally that I would be machining slot, circles etc..
I never thought in a million years that I would be machining logos

This is the first time I've tried to engrave an EPS file.
I don't even have Corel !! What I do is E-mail the EPS file to a buddy with the program, and he sends it back as a DXF.
I'm not the most computer literate person, and that's why I'm having so many problems. I've tried on numerous occasions to find an EPS to DXF converter program, but never had any luck.
Rowbare was correct !! My logo was a bunch of small lines ! 1600 of them !

[ger21]

Vectric's programs can open EPS files directly.

And Corel's .dxf export is not very good.

[harley4ever]

Yeah I tried corel draw some time ago but it was very clumsy in creating machinable geometry. Im not an expert with the whole logo or bitmap stuff but if I am not mistaking, there is a tracing option within dolphin. That may always be an option but as I mentioned before, if your doing alot of logo or bitmap, jpeg stuff, you might be best to spend 100 bucks or so and find something specifically designed for that.

[sqatch]

I manually trace drawings and bmp's with the curve tool. At first it seemed tedious but you get better. Now I can draw things like flames freehand no problem. In the preferences menu select the curves tab and check store curve data. This will allow you to go back and edit near points. In the view menu select show near points. Also when creating nc tool paths remember to specify open or closed path.