Order of tool paths, drill holes and other graphical objects

CircuitCAM supports controlling the order of graphical objects such as tool paths or drill holes in two ways, either automatic sorting during export of NC data or under direct manual control. The sequences of objects is essential to support the specific manufacturing processes, e.g.

• for contour routing the final separation of pieces from the raw material requires careful control to avoid damage
• for insulate milling depending of the kind of machine the distance between tool and base-material requires to work in one direction
• for SMT Laser stencils the tolerances within one footprint are tighter than the overall tolerances and therefore all pads for one footprint must be processed in one rush

Automatic sequence sorting capabilities during export:

• different kinds of sorting strategies to minimize ineffective tool movement
  • non-directional
  • sorting in increasing +x, -x, +y, -y direction
• quick efficient sorting also for millions of objects
• sort holes along diameters
• sort open versus closed tool paths
• sorting for scanner fields 
• sorting by footprints (one footprint is completed before another starts)

Manual sequence control:

• indication of the sequence order of every graphic object within one layer
• moving the sequence position of single or a group of objects relative or absolute to the very beginning / end
• for a group of objects the powerful selection capabilities can be used to select objects of a specific kind or size before changing the order
• reversing the direction of paths (exchange start / end)