I want this to be my first project when the GlowForge arrives.
What would be your suggestion for taking this image and turning it into a vector that will be compatible with the GlowForge and does not have too steep a learning curve?
Brian
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inkscape would be good, there are many good tutorials on youtube to learn the program.
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Nice choice!
(One thing to watch for…since that looks like it might already be laser cut, you don’t want to try to sell anything you copy from it, due to copyright restrictions.)
But with all of the straight lines in the design, it would be a good choice to develop your manual tracing skills, in whatever drawing software you choose to use. It will not auto-trace well, since there are deep shadows that will interfere with the shapes and skew the rectangles that you want.
Adobe Illustrator would work very well if you have it, or CorelDraw or Inkscape can be used to trace it.
Once it’s traced, save the file as a (plain, not Inkscape) SVG format file and you should be good to go. 
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I second the copyright thing but Illustrator should be easy enough. Create one side and then reflect it.
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Not to argue with Jules about auto trace and shadows but I would photocopy it (put a piece of white paper on top before shutting the lid). If you don’t have a copier that will go large enough (mine does ledger paper), try Staples or Kinko’s/FedEx. See if they can scan it and email it to you (my work copier will scan instead of copy, translate to PDF and email the result. Staples, etc can do the same.
Open the PDF in your design software of choice and I’ll bet you get really good auto trace results & may not need to do any manual touch up. Depending on what GF supports it might be able to do the cut right from the PDF or if you have a paper print of the PDF, the whole camera trick stuff should let you use the copy directly without any design software 
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One suggestion, fix the 4 squares in the center…they are not, well, square and there is a blip on the top part of the bottom one. And the six shapes below that are a bit off angle…unless your intent is to drive those with OCD insane…lmao…
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Oh ya I should have added… It’s a very rough job hahah. Feel free to edit it 
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Its very good for your first try though!!!
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Looks like a window from Frank Lloyd Wright’s Lake Geneva Inn (1911).
Our anniversary clock is a (licensed) FLW replica, so I’ve had my eye on panels like this as a private project for just over a year. 
Can’t wait to see your version!
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Affinity Photo / Photoshop / GIMP to the rescue! Select the shadows and fill them with the background white. Save, then switch to your preferred vector tool (Inkscape, Illustrator, Affinity Design) and trace. 
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Chuckle! I’m one of those folks who wants accuracy above ease of manipulation, but yeah, that would also work.
For straight lines, it’s incredibly easy to manual trace, and it’s a good way to learn to use the tools.
I’ve actually found that trying to auto-trace on a low resolution image, (like all internet images), usually introduces a lot of errors and you spend more time cleaning up the image and removing shadows before trying for an auto-trace, or cleaning up the auto-trace after it has been done, than you do just drawing a few straight lines in the first place.
But there are multiple ways of accomplishing it…if someone else wants to do it the other way first, it might give them accurate enough results for whatever they want to use it for, so I’ve got nothing against doing it that way. 
edit…(And yes, just doing the trace on half of it and mirroring is a great way to make sure that everything lines up properly.)
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Wow add a few more parallel lines and that could be an amazing decorative register cover for a central air system.
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I had some fun practice with this on my own in Affinity. Pulled it in as a PDF and also as the SVG version. I traced around the shapes all down one side and cleaned them up. I duplicated each one then flipped it horizontally and moved it to the other side. Dumb way of mirroring, but I haven’t figured mirroring out yet in Affinity. Then, all I have to do is trace the shapes down the center. Voilá! Or as my good friend likes to say, Viola!
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Astronomer by training, so I’m way more comfortable in the bitmap world – I tend to think in terms of matrix algebra in image processing workflows.
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Which is why there is so much interesting diversity in this life.
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The four squares are still a bit off but I’m way to much of a perfectionist…lmao
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Just use the square tool and rotate 45 degrees to match.
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