Toolpath Generation

The kerf width from the active cut recipe is halved and offset to the correct side of every contour: into the scrap on outer profiles, into the void on holes, and no offset at all on open paths, which cut on center. Climb or conventional direction flips which way the torch travels. Arcs are never linearized — arc geometry survives the entire pipeline, so G2/G3 moves in the output are exact, and linearization only happens if a post processor requires it. The offset engine carries each source edge's identity through kerf compensation, so it can distinguish intentional flats from the sampled points of a real curve. Regular polygons therefore stay straight-sided instead of being mistaken for circles. Curved geometry still keeps whole arcs: circles come through as two clean 180° arcs, a 270° arc stays one arc, chains of tiny same-center fragments merge into single spans, and rounded corner joins meet neighboring arcs at their exact tangent point — smaller, smoother programs with pure arc motion through curved details. If an offset pinches a narrow neck into separate islands, each island becomes its own cut with its own lead and pierce.

Lead-ins stabilize the arc off the part before it touches the contour: a tangent arc (radius and angle) or a straight line (length and angle). Every candidate pierce point is collision-tested against the part's own toolpath and every neighboring part on the nest — round, mirrored, or nested inside another part's hole — and the placement walks the contour until it finds a clear spot. Lead-outs can be a line, an arc, an overcut — which keeps cutting past the pierce point, retracing the start of the cut to erase the pierce divot — or nothing. An overcut stops on the last corner it can reach rather than tacking on a sliver of a move finer than the machine can position to, so it is safe on any part and any controller. Circular holes too small to hold the configured arc lead switch to a center pierce with a soft tangent entry into the wall, and you're asked once per generate before that happens.

Within every part, holes always cut before the outer profile, so interior cuts finish while the part is still anchored to the skeleton. Between cuts, a nearest-neighbor pass minimizes rapid travel. Generation warns you by name when parts' toolpaths collide, and rule-skipped contours are excluded from pierce counts, cut length, quotes, and post output. When it finishes, the Generate button shows the estimated cut time — rapids, pierce dwells, and cutting moves included — the same figure the Quote Job calculator builds on.