Fill all shapes at once ignoring half of artwork

[handandsew (steven)]

When I select fill all shapes at once, its only engraving about half of my artwork, when I switch to fill individually, the missing half appears.
Artwork was built in Illustrator, all the fonts and logo were outlined. Everything is set to full black colour.
Why?

[handandsew (steven)]

[moors7 (Jordy Moors)]

Looks like the missing shapes have duplicate lines. Try ungrouping them and dragging them around to see if there are duplicates hiding underneat?

[handandsew (steven)]

I do believe you’re correct. Is there a reason that it makes duplicates dissapear? Would be nice to have some sort of error message or options to tell you as a new user.

[Rick (Technical Evangelist)]

@handandsew

Is there a reason that it makes duplicates dissapear?

Fills work using the boundaries of the shape to toggle the fill on and off, as shown in the full-screen image below. This is expected and useful behavior, not an error. While not producing as you would like, this is not an error condition.

You can use the ‘Edit’→’Delete Duplicates’ to help identify and remove unwanted duplicates when you experience these issues. In most cases, the duplicate is visible as darker than other shapes, and the marquee when selected can be obscured by the duplicate.

(Example: In this view, two of the 3 shapes are selected)

Here is a post that explains how filling of shapes works.

How do I invert (negate) a vector engraving?

If you want to invert a vector engraving (Fill layer) you need to add an outline to it. Think about what happens when you scan a circle, compared to the letter ‘O’. The inner ring of the O toggles the fill. If you add another shape (like a square) outside it, it negates the whole thing: [image] And a slightly different example, this time done by changing the outer line around the design to a ‘Line’, instead of leaving it as part of the Fill layer: [image] In the case above, the design alr…

Edit to also offer:

Why do things disappear when I fill them, but not when I cut them?

If you have shapes that vanish when scanned, it’s almost always because you have doubled-up shapes, sitting exactly on top of each other, and they’re cancelling one another out, like this: [image] Notice the last pair of circles disappears completely in the scan preview? Make sure your shapes aren’t grouped (you can tell because the selection pattern will be just simple dashes if the shapes aren’t grouped), then use Edit > Delete Duplicates to find overlapping shapes and delete them. This s…

[handandsew (steven)]

This is the first software I’ve seen work like this. I can’t think of a single reason why you’d want it, seems like it’s a weird shortcut rather than reaching ppl how to vector correctly. Why not just do vectors like every other program? Trotec doesn’t do this.

I’ve been using trotecs and illustrator and lasers for almost 2 decades, and this “function” is absolutely counterintuitive. They really should fix it

[handandsew (steven)]

Just teach people how to use shape builders and compound paths like literally every vector program. Teaching people incorrectly is going to stop them from using professional software

[moors7 (Jordy Moors)]

@handandsew

Just teach people how to use shape builders and compound paths like literally every vector program.

The same could be said for teaching people not make duplicate shapes ? How is the software supposed to know what you intended for that to work? Why did you have duplicate shapes to begin with?

The computer doesn’t make mistakes, it does exactly as it is told.

If you make a proper file, without duplicates, using the booleans and compounds you yourself mention, then this works perfectly well. And it has been working perfectly well for tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people.

They don’t need to “just fix it”, because it ain’t broken