I want to cut my parts from top down, and left to right. If I have 3 columns and 10 rows, I would like it to cut the top row of the first 3 columns in order from left to right.
Selecting top down does not do the first row. The laser still only picks its own route.
On a related note, I would also like to get the laser to cut monoline text in the same way. As if the laser is the pen while writing.
How can I make these things happen in the correct order? (hopefully without assigning a numerical value to each character/object in shape properties as that would take exactly 10 years to do that)
Are you saying, making changes to the ‘Optimization Settings’ is having zero effect, no observable difference in the cut order of your job? Please explain this a bit more if you would. I need to check, do you have the ‘Optimize Cut Plan’ ticked ON (green)? You need to have that ON when wanting to use the ‘Optimization Settings’.
Yes, optimize cut path is checked on. It does “Generally” Cut from top(ish) to bottom(ish), but it does not cut the top row, then the second row, then the third and so on. Same as left to right.
If you want it to be exact, then you’d need to set specific priorities for the items to have them go in that order.
The problem is that for every “well behaved” job like yours, there are many others more like this one:
If I choose “top to bottom” here, the best option is do do the left-most black line, then the blue line, then the red, then the green. If I force it to truly go top to bottom, it’ll do black, blue, then green, then red, even though the green line is way off to the side and requires a lot more travel to get there.
Everything in the LightBurn cut planner is done with scores and weighting of choices - it looks at the choices available and chooses the best one based on a score. Top to bottom are scored a bit less heavily than some of the other options, and they’re done in ‘chunks’ - so anything within about an inch of the same vertical is considered equal.
And to your other point about “hopefully not by assigning a number” - you don’t have to assign everything it’s own value. Select the whole top row, set that to zero. Select the second row and set that to one, and so on. LightBurn will decide within each numbered group how to proceed, but if you have “cut by priority” as the first option, it will process each number as one set.
