Reorder Paths for Speed
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Wouldn't it be nice to speed up our plots? Sure thing, but how? If we draw too fast the quality and precision will suffer. But what about the time spent moving the pen around while it is lifted? Well, we need to do that... sort of. What if we could re-order the objects in our plot so as to minimize the travel time spent with the pen up? This is exactly what the "Reorder Paths for Speed" extension does. It examines your drawing and looks for pieces it can re-order in order to reduce pen-up travel distances. While it does not find the optimal re-ordering -- that takes too much time -- it nonetheless does a pretty good job. Experimentation has shown that it can reduce plotting time by 30% or more.
Using this extension does impact your Inkscape drawing. This extension changes the order in which pieces of your drawing are drawn. For the Eggbot, this should produce no visual change in the finished plot. However, on bitmap display devices such as your computer screen, you may see visual changes. For example if your drawing contains two overlapping figures. The figure drawn first will be occluded on your screen by the figure drawn second. If this extension changes the order in which those figures are drawn, then you will see a difference on your screen. But not on the Eggbot which ignores Inkscape fills while plotting. For this reason, be careful in your use of this extension. Save your drawing before applying this extension.
The two check box options of this extension are not yet implemented. You can ignore them at present. (Or, if you think that you know how to do it well, you might notice that it's one of the things called out on our Help wanted page.
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