Can lines be joined

"Joined" may not be the correct term as its found me nothing in the help search so I had better describe what I would like to do.

I have done a drawing of a model which is to be cut with a laser cutter. Because of the way the drawing developed over many months the profile the laser is supposed to follow is made up of a lot of lines which are definitely joined to each other in that they are snapped to each other.

It looks fine on the screen but its giving the laser a headache as it jumps about from one segment to the not necessarily adjacent one and then jumps back again.

So I think what I need to do is select all the elements that make up a profile and join them into one element. That way the laser would start at one end and do the profile in one sweep.

For my CNC mill I have some CAD/CAM software that takes a DXF from AutoCAD and then has a feature called "close vectors" which does this but the resultant file, whilst great for my mill, is no use the the third party that has the laser machine.

Any help and suggestions gratefully recieved

Paul

PEDIT should work for this. We do this all the time at work.

There is a lisp file that can join straight lines as one: Glue.lsp

Do not know if Pedite was waht you were looking for but maybe this will help in future!

GLUE.LSP

straight lines can be joines using the "JOIN" command. The pedit will deal with arcs as well as long as the ends are snapped together. The good thing about the pedit is you can select a lot of them using a window.