Well, this is what I have come up with. My only concern is when I upload the image to my glowforge, the red outline seems to be really thin - even though I have adjusted the stroke up to 25 pts. Is this normal or is there something else i should be doing?
I would really like for it to be an actual outline, with space between the cut line and the actual engraved image, but I cannot figure out how to adjust the image so it sits perfectly within the outline. I was also trying to cut a hole for the handle, but that seems to just make things worse.
The thin red line is not a problem. The cut line is always the the lasers thin cut size not how it looks. The only way to get a 25pt stroke is to expand it making it a fill and engrave instead of cut.
also if you expand it it turns into 2 lines, outer and inner. You can delete the inner and make the outer the cut line.
Keep in mind that the laser line will be in the center of that 25 point line - so you may end up with an un-engraved edge…if you want it to cut just outside your engrave, take that line back down to 1 (I usually use .5) and make sure it’s where you want it
I personally don’t use points for stroke size. I use .008” so that it mimics the approximate beam size. On very intricate designs, it helps to see where self-intersections may occur.
A point should be 1/72, or .0138”.
Corel users (and users of other laser brands) tend to use “hairline”, which I think is just .001”. The problem I have with that on Illustrator, is that the strokes tend to disappear for me if I’m zoomed out, which is annoying.
oops, you’re right, the PNG background is pure white and gets ignored. I’ve been bitten a few times by not-quite-pure-white backgrounds, so now I try to always use the transparency capability of PNG, just to be sure.
It’s a good practice if you aren’t making files yourself. Stuff gets re-saved in different formats etc. so that PNG with a white background you think is clean might just be full of JPEG noise or been saved previously as a very low quality/compressed JPEG.
can I take a moment to complain about people taking cellphone pictures of their computer screen, instead of just emailing the actual file? What’s with people taking cellphone pictures of their computer screen, instead of just emailing the actual file?
ok, sorry for the derail/mini-rant, it does not apply here, thanks.
Glad you saw the post…I was really laughing. Then I see your ‘thumbs up’ and was squinting to see what the heck that is on the tip of your thumb…looks like a teeny tiny building. It’s the top of jbv’s avatar.
Almost had that last night. I was referred by someone I know to help a guy trying to build a prototype of a new walking assistance stick for the blind. He’s already got the CAD files so I should just be able to tweak them a bit and run them through a slicer and off to the 3D printer.
Yeah, except the “CAD” files were just 3D renders. I had to explain that what he had were pictures not the kind of files it takes to make something.
mine are rubber not leather (same cabinet but modded the heck out of it)