Hi there!
I’m trying my best to figure out how to create my own SVG files and have been researching and troubleshooting for days. I’ve figured out most things but what I cannot find an answer to is why when I upload my SVG image into Glowforge it doesn’t recognize the colors.
I create the image in procreate with the cut line in red and the engrave line in blue. Then I save it as a png to then convert to an SVG in Illustrator.
I make sure I select color when I trace it and when it’s saved and I open it just as a file it shows the red and blue just fine. But then when I import into glowforge it loads both as engrave without color.
What am I doing wrong?
I’ve been able to just select each part as cut or engrave once it’s in there but I’d like to be able to create files that I can share or sell eventually and I’d want them to be able to be imported correctly.
It might help to post what you’re seeing on the screen in the GF dashboard. You won’t see the colors of the lines in the GF dashboard, but if they have different colors, they should load separately. You can then control the cut/engrave/score for each one.
I’m not 100% sure what you’re trying to accomplish, though.
When you convert to vector in Illustrator the default behavior is filled shapes - even like thin lines. You need to change your resulting filled shapes objects to no fill/colored stroke.
However - be mindful that if the object was meant to be a single line you’ll also need to delete some anchor points.
As you’ve started your goal is to make files to sell I’d suggest changing your workflow - work natively in Illustrator and avoid the Procreate-then-converting part. This will result in cleaner files.
The other answers are correct but the simple one is the GF doesn’t recognize colors of lines as instructions to cut or engrave, just to distinguish different things you might want to set to cut, core or engrave.
They have some secret trick that allows their designs to come in with specific settings but that’s not available to us.
Cuts and scores are the defaults for lines. (Scores are just lower powered cuts.)
Engraves are either raster images (bmp, png, etc) embedded in your SVG file or objects with a fill. Filled objects (filled with a color - including white that might not look “filled”) do not need a stroke or border line to engrave.
One other thing - line or stroke width is ignored by the GF. It’s going to use the center of the line you see on the screen in your design program.
Thank you to everyone who answered here. I was able to figure it out with all your help. I assumed that just having the right colors it would recognize it but realize now it’s the stroke and fill that determines how it interprets it.
Thank you so much!
