Visio 2007 drawing

[Dave Hookings]

One of my hoped for uses for Visio is as a drawing tool for simple cnc
shapes. On the outline for the shapes I would like to leave gaps for holding
the piece in place, enabling me to snap out the final work. In my previous
software I was able to overlay a couple of lines the required distance apart
and where they cut the wanted shape I could use a delete tool that created a
gap/gaps in the shape. Then I could delete the lines, leaving my shape with
gaps in it. I can see an eraser tool in the pens toolbox but can't seem to
get it to do anything, and searching for eraser in the help file gives no
hits. Can anyone please tell me if it is possible to do what I want, either
in a similar fashion or some other way?

TIA

Dave

 

[Paul Herber]

One of my hoped for uses for Visio is as a drawing tool for simple cnc
shapes. On the outline for the shapes I would like to leave gaps for holding
the piece in place, enabling me to snap out the final work. In my previous
software I was able to overlay a couple of lines the required distance apart
and where they cut the wanted shape I could use a delete tool that created a
gap/gaps in the shape. Then I could delete the lines, leaving my shape with
gaps in it. I can see an eraser tool in the pens toolbox but can't seem to
get it to do anything, and searching for eraser in the help file gives no
hits. Can anyone please tell me if it is possible to do what I want, either
in a similar fashion or some other way?

Yes, very simple, just use a line shape, or any shape you choose,
resize the shape to the size of the gap you want, move and rotate into
position, then set the line colour to none and the fill colour to
white.

 

[Dave Hookings]

Thanks Paul, I had not thought of that workaround, but, unfortunately it does
not work. In order to be able to process the drawing with my 'cnc' software,
I need to open it as a .dxf cadcam file or one of the .emf type picture
formats. Whichever combination I use, the resulting drawing in the cadcam has
the unaltered original shape, along with the 'overlay' shape outline. I think
I really do need to erase part of the shape, as against hiding it in Visio. I
can see, in 'ink tools' an eraser tool but I have no idea of its purpose or
usage. Searching for 'eraser' in help produces no hits. A bit rich that, as
the tool tip says exactly that. I have also seen a 'fragment' operation that
the help file has not heard of.

Dave

 

[Paul Herber]

Thanks Paul, I had not thought of that workaround, but, unfortunately it does
not work. In order to be able to process the drawing with my 'cnc' software,
I need to open it as a .dxf cadcam file or one of the .emf type picture
formats. Whichever combination I use, the resulting drawing in the cadcam has
the unaltered original shape, along with the 'overlay' shape outline. I think
I really do need to erase part of the shape, as against hiding it in Visio. I
can see, in 'ink tools' an eraser tool but I have no idea of its purpose or
usage. Searching for 'eraser' in help produces no hits. A bit rich that, as
the tool tip says exactly that. I have also seen a 'fragment' operation that
the help file has not heard of.

No, the eraser tool won't work in this case, Visio is a vector drawing
program, not bitmap. Do what i suggested before and use the menu Shape
-> Operations -> Subtract.

 

[Dave Hookings]

Hi Paul,
Yes, that's a lot closer to what I'm after - not quite there, but I think as
far as I'm going to get. If you think of a simple rectangle (although the
shapes I will be working with will be more complex), if you subtract another
slim rectangle you are left with two rectangles. What I am really after is
two U shapes lying on their sides with the open ends nearly meeting, ie the
subtraction does not close the resulting two shapes.
The good news is that the two lines that I don't want export as separate
entities in .emf form. My cam programme is not very bright but it can delete
simple entities, so I can get my results with a couple of right clicks and
delete.

Thanks for your suggestions. They were very helpful.

Regards

Dave Hookings