Any illustrator gurus out there?

Can anyone tell me why when I load a file into the Glowforge, why a small section of the file that is grouped, and colored to match the rest of the group for an ENGRAVE, shows up as a cut on the app, and if I switch it to an engrave, it disappears. Just this one section. The rest of the group allows me to make it an engrave. If I try to print the file, it fails on processing your design. If I leave it as a cut, it goes to the lit up button to print.

I think engrave of a vector only does fills and ignores strokes. So perhaps those objects have white or no fill?

Mark,

Here is where I got the file.
http://robbbb.github.io/VectorRuler/

I made a ruler. I want to engrave everything instead of cut. What do I need to do to the dashes to convert them to an object that is engraveable?

Basically, with no stroke, and fill, they essentially become invisible in the Glowforge app.

I don’t get it.

That’s correct. They need to either have a fill or a stroke. Fills will automatically be selected for engrave. Strokes will automatically be selected for cut. You can change those cuts to score if desired. If you use this option, the width of the scores will be the width of the beam at the height that the score is made.

Or, if you really want to engrave them, you will have to use Outline Stroke in Illustrator to convert the stroke into a closed path. If you use this option, the width of the engrave will match the width of your original stroke in Illustrator. This option gives you more control.

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THAT WAS IT! HUGE Thank You VERY MUCH!

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I suppose I should have mentioned that you can also rasterize the parts you want to engrave, but I’ve not used that method at all.

Nope, the outline stroke was the info I needed. I’m still learning illustrator, and these tips are the glue I need to hold all the techniques I’m learning together!

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The key here is the height. You can make a score thicker and not suffer the time expense that an engrave causes (if you change stroked objects into a closed path by defocusing the laser. Simply change the focal point from say .130 (Med Maple Ply setting) to .150 or .200 or something to get the stroke width you’d like. It’s pretty quick to run a series of strokes at different defocused settings to see what the resulting thickness will be and then using that next time you want a thick line and don’t want to wait on an engrave. :smiling_face:

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That’s pretty darn cool. Thanks!

That’s a great tip :sunglasses: