Thinning out excessive vertices

[Dool]

Hello all,

I have a 2d drawing that I am trying to import into another program. The polylines have an excessive amount of vertices. Is there a way to thin out these vertices without losing the contour of the line? I tried breaking the drawing into pieces to no avail, either ACAD or the program I am trying to import into will crash. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[borgunit]

If these are individual pieces of a polyline that make up a large contour, you may try joining the lines into one large polyline or create a block out of them. I have seen some programs handle these a little differently.

"Everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects." — Will Rogers

 

[CarlB]

You're looking for a "weeding" process. Removes vertices based on input paramaters, such as maximium spacing between vertices, maximum angle change along polyline. I've seen lots of weeding lisp routines. Try a search for "weed.lsp". This topic was discussed at

http://theswamp.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2171

 

[IFRs]

This was probably a PLine that was smoothed using Spline option of PLine, then edited by stretching or PEdit and Moving vertices. When you edit a Splined PLine, the PLine will have many many points. Always DeCurve the PLine, edit it and then re Spline it. That way, only the "control" points of the PLine remain. Can you Decurve the PLine, Import it then re-curve it (smooth, Spline, etc) ?

 

[IFRs]

Opps. Sorry. I was wrong. It's not editing the Splined PLine but Exploding it that adds the points. Once a SPlined PLine is Exploded, you can not go backwards and make a polyline out of it without getting all the vertexes.

 

[Dool]

Thanks for all the help. I believe I have found a solution to the problem - at least for now I hope. I blocked it as suggested and so far that seems to be working. Again, thanks all and have a nice weekend.
JD