Just for kicks…
I cut a bunch of freakin’ 8x10" puzzles from a generator, just to get an idea. I don’t think generated puzzles are the best testing solution though.
But, those results anyways, at my normal cut speeds with “throughput on”.
Default file:
Inches: 534.62
Cut time: 1:45 mins
Symmetric Weighting/Nearest Neighbor:
Inches: 493.36 (7% savings)
Cut time: 1:44 mins
Horizontal Weighting/Nearest Neighbor:
Inches: 511.54 (4% savings)
Cut time: 1:44mins
Vertical Weighting/Nearest Neighbor
Inches: 509.77 (4% savings)
Cut time: 1:44 mins
Traveling Salesman/Symetric
Inches: 525.42 in (1% saving)
Cut time: 1:45
Traveling Salesman/Horizontal
Inches: 526.75 (1%)
Cut time: 1:45
Traveling Salesman/Vertical
Inches: 528.51 (1%)
Cut time: 1:45
I could see some of the different cutting patterns, but it just didn’t make a difference hardly at all in time. The “inches” are total head movement for the job, and the head moves so quick (up to 180 inches per second), that a few inches saved doesn’t matter much on this machine.
I switched gears and scoured the internet for a free file to use that might have a lot of different elements, and came up with this Dymaxion Map (Laser Cut Dymaxion Map Wall Art SVG File Free Download - 3axis.co). For this, I removed the engraves and changed all of the different lines to one color, so everything was a score. I didn’t want to cut out a bunch of dang stuff. I did change this back to “standard” for cutting speed… I dunno why, thought maybe it would show more of a difference or something - I don’t think it messed up any comparisons though since it was a different file. I’m running it in throughput mode right now, just because…
Default file
Inches: 785.44
Cut time: 2:39 mins (throughput mode: 2:02 mins)
Nearest Neighbor/Symmetric
Inches: 558.75
Cut time: 2:25 mins (throughput mode: 1:55)
Traveling Salesman/Symmetric
Inches: 805.69 (actually longer than the default file and whatever order it came in as)
Cut time: 2:35 mins (throughput mode: 2:00 mins)
You may or may not be able to decipher anything from this, but here are some screenshots showing the movement paths:
Default:
Nearest Neighbor, Symmetric:
Traveling Salesman, Symmetric:
I don’t know what the basis of traveling salesman is for the software, but it just doesn’t seem to be anywhere near as good as nearest neighbor cutting (and it takes a lot longer to calculate!).