Lessons: A Note on the Tangification Highlight Function

Tangification Highlight Function

The Tangification Highlight function will display the specific angle of degrees between the segments where they connect.

This is extremely useful when Tangifying the arc segment connections to provide a smoother cut between the arcs.

Note that this is in regards to any series of arcs creating a curve, not where two arcs come together to create an obvious corner in the design.

Tangify Tool Definition

The Tangify function will smooth the connection between the Selected Arc Circuits that are below the specified Angle in the Tangify field to provide a smoother cutting transition between the arcs.

The Tangify All Circuits will smooth the connection between All of the Arc Circuits that are below the specified Angle in the Tangify field to provide a smoother cutting transition between the arcs.

See: Tangify Function

See: Tangify All Circuits Function

See: Arc Tool in Trace

See: Arc Tool Definition

See: Splines Definition

See: Convert Arc to Splines Function

Displaying the Tangification Highlight Function
Have the desired design on the screen. If not already displays, select Options > Show Control Points to turn on displaying the Control Points of each segment. Control Points Definition Control Points are the dots in the corners of a selected object which can be used to Edit it. Control Points in Trace are displayed as colored Dots on the Segments that make up the Object. Beginning/End Points are Blue and Center Points are Green. These can be toggled on/off in the Options menu. Moving these Control Points will change the shape of the element being moved. Control Points on Bounding Rectangle are displayed as darker dots on the corners of the Bounding Rectangle of the selected Object that can be used to edit the object. See: Bounding Rectangle Definition
Click on the Tangification Highlight toggle. The design will now display the specific angle of degrees between the segments where they connect.
Arc connections of Zero (0) display that they are perfectly tangent and will cut smoothly. Any connections that are displayed above/below Zero (0) are not tangent. NOTE: If the arcs are extremely out of tangent, the Head may pick up the blade and replunge while cutting, making a rough cut.

Adjusting the Tangification

Select the objects you want to tangify.
Specify the desired Angle in the Tangify field.
- For this example, our segment connection is 12.6 degrees.
- Tangify will smooth the connection between selected Arc Circuits that are below the specified Angle in the Tangify field.
- Thus we need to enter an Angle above the connection Angle we want to fix.
Change the Tangify field to 13 and click Tangent.
The arc connections below this value will be made Tangent.
Our selected arcs are now Tangent.