gEDA-user: Design changs required to mill PCBs?

[Dave McGuire]

On Oct 2, 2006, at 9:29 PM, Dave N6NZ wrote:
>> What I always wonder about with these tools, or similar X/Y  
>> machines is why
>> no one ever optimizes the travel to save time.  Seems like it  
>> should be simple
>> mater of sorting the vectors?  Instead the machine goes at random  
>> from
>> place to place.
> Probably not so simple.  Especially if you use the word "optimal"  
> in a literal sense.  I think you end up with a combinatorial search  
> space. OTOH, sub-optimal but "better" could probably be achieved  
> with a simple-minded greedy algorithm.

   What constitutes "sorted" in a two-dimensional space is an issue,  
but a tremendous gain can be had simply by sorting by one axis.

                -Dave

-- 
Dave McGuire
Cape Coral, FL