Fixing paths for CNC milling

[unfa]

I am working with Inkscape to design products. I use the drawings to prepare product visuals with Blender, and also prepare toolpaths for CNC milling.

The CNC workflow exposed some problems with my Inkscape drawings. I spend lots of time fixing these problems manually, if I could find a tool that'd solve them automatically or semi-automatically, that'd greatly improve my throughput.

The problems I encounter are:

1. Self-intersecting paths:

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2. Duplicate path points:

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I wonder if there are any tools that could help me deal with these things automatically. Blender for example has a tool to merge close verticies automatically (called "Remove duplicates"). It takes a lot of work to take an Inkscape drawing and use it in an engineering program (like FreeCAD).

[brynn]

Welcome to the forum!

Unfortunately, I can't think of any way to avoid those problems.....assuming you're drawing them from scratch yourself.  And fixing them is just what you're already doing -- manually, and one at a time.

As long as I've been using Inkscape (just as a hobby, for over 10 years) these have been accepted problems with Inkscape.  You know "that's just the way it is".  But if they are causing significant problems for digital cutters, maybe they should be considered more serious, and get a higher priority for fixing?

But if you aren't drawing them yourself, perhaps we can investigate how your drawings are being created?  Like if you're using Trace Bitmap, some adjustment of settings might help prevent the double nodes somewhat.