How to find 'Gap tolerance' which is in CorelDraw in Illustrator?

[imtish]

Hello.
I am using the Solid Edge 2D Nesting program to nesting shapes for the laser cutting machine. But when I use that nested file in illustrator I came to realize which all of my connected paths became separated from each other.
And that is a bad thing: because the laser machine use joined paths not separated. And as I know (and I wish I am wrong) Illustrator can not join path without the problem of joining unrelated paths together too! (Image bellow:)

Before

After using the join tool:

after

You can see unrelated shapes will become connected t each other too! and I do not want that.
As I know CorelDraw has a solution to that and that is the "Gap Tolerance" feature (Like the image below) :

This feature empowering us to do not connect shapes with larger gaps between them. And separated shapes do not connect together (As I wanted to).

Is it really a way to fix that Issue in Illustrator?
I attached the file. Thanks.

[Monika Gause]

What you want might be a compound path instead of "Join"

[imtish]

Do not work.

[femkeblanco]

I've not tried it myself, but you could try Hiroyuki Sato's script "Join Reasonably".  It has variables you could set:

http://shspage.com/aijs/en/#join_reasonably

[imtish]

Thank you for that script.

this was the result of that script:

1. Select paths

2. Run the script and the Error

3. Lines disappeared and still disconnected

Error is telling me:

Error9090: You cannot delete all path-points of a path

Line: 142

-> p1.remove();

This is the edit I made in script settings:

var conf = {};
// Settings ==================================

conf.close = false;     // make a closed path. true/false
                        // (make closed paths when conf.ignore_if_further_than > 0)

conf.marge_if_nearer_than   = 0.5;  // merge the ends to connect within this distance
                                    // set 0 to be ignored (unit:mm)

conf.ignore_if_further_than = 0.6;  // ignore to connect if distance between the ends exceeds this value
                                  // set 0 to be ignored (unit:mm)

conf.hanLen = 0.33; // ratio of handle length to connected line. set 0 to be ignored

conf.dontAddRevHan = 120; // do not generate a handle if the angle of the connecting part is more than this value.
                          // set 0 to be ignored (unit:degree, 0-180)

// ========================================

I just set  conf.ignore_if_further_than to 0.6 from default settings.

And conf.close to false.

Maby it's better to write part of the code is the script which error showed to me:

// ------------------------------------------------
// adjust the length of handles
function adjustHandleLen(p1, p2){
  var d = dist(p1.anchor, p2.anchor);
  
  if(d == 0){ // distance is 0
    p2.leftDirection = p1.leftDirection;
    p1.remove();
    
  } else if(d < conf.marge_if_nearer_than){
    var pnt = [ (p1.anchor[0] + p2.anchor[0]) / 2,
                (p1.anchor[1] + p2.anchor[1]) / 2 ];
    p2.rightDirection = [ p2.rightDirection[0] + (pnt[0] - p2.anchor[0]),
                          p2.rightDirection[1] + (pnt[1] - p2.anchor[1]) ];
    p2.leftDirection =  [ p1.leftDirection[0] + (pnt[0] - p1.anchor[0]),
                          p1.leftDirection[1] + (pnt[1] - p1.anchor[1]) ];
    p2.anchor = pnt;
    p1.remove();
    
  } else if(conf.hanLen > 0){
    d *= conf.hanLen;
    var d2 = d * d;
    if(!arrEq(p1.anchor, p1.rightDirection)){
      if(conf.dontAddRevHan
         && getRad2(p2.anchor, p1.anchor, p1.rightDirection) > conf.dontAddRevHan){
        p1.rightDirection = p1.anchor;
      } else if(dist2(p1.anchor, p1.rightDirection) > d2){
        p1.rightDirection = getPnt(p1.anchor, getRad(p1.anchor, p1.rightDirection), d);
      }
    }
    if(!arrEq(p2.anchor, p2.leftDirection)){
      if(conf.dontAddRevHan
         && getRad2(p1.anchor, p2.anchor, p2.leftDirection) > conf.dontAddRevHan){
        p2.leftDirection = p2.anchor;
      } else if(dist2(p2.anchor, p2.leftDirection) > d2){
        p2.leftDirection = getPnt(p2.anchor, getRad(p2.anchor, p2.leftDirection), d);
      }
    }
    
  } else {
    p1.rightDirection = p1.anchor;
    p2.leftDirection  = p2.anchor;
  }
}
// ----------------------------------------------

What to do now?

My Illustrator version is Adobe Illustrator 2020 24.0.1

[imtish]

I attached my file to the discussion if that will helps you.

[Monika Gause]

I also didn't have success with Join Reasonably. The plugin VectorFirstAid can handle this.

[imtish]

Thank you for introducing this plugin, but I do not have that, and that's so pricey. The Shape Builder tool worked for me anyway.

[Kurt Gold · Accepted solution]

Illustrator currently does not provide features comparable to Corel Draw's excellent join mechanisms.

However, based on your sample file you may try:

• In the main Tools palette, double click the Shape Builder tool to open its Options dialog and set up a custom Gap Detection (1 inch is the maximum).
• Select all objects on the scratch area, take the Shape Builder tool, hold down the Shift key and drag across the entire selection.

A good portion of the objects should now be joined. The remaining (unjoined) paths would have to be joined manually with the Join command.

[imtish]

Thank you.
The shape builder tool worked.