How do I cut something out with my glowforge

[hinesfamily]

Hello all. I have a very simple design that I am trying to figure out how to cut with my Glowforge. It is basically just a circle (for right now. It will probably get more complicated with future projects). I took a JPG design that I want to cut out and imported it into Illustrator and saved it as anSVG file. I loaded that SVG into the Glowforge software and it does not allow me to cut it. It says that I cannot cut a BMP. What am I doing wrong. Also, my experience with Illustrator is VERY limited so any “detailed” instructions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance

[dklgood]

My suggestion to you is to read some of the tutorials and especially give this a look. https://glowforge.com/support/topic/first-three-prints/welcome-to-the-glowforge-app-and-your-first-prints

[evansd2]

This is also a good “first steps” guide:

Getting started

The Glowforge team recommends working through your first prints by following along with the examples shown here to learn where everything is: They have also recently added instructions with video on using the Manual settings here: Working with Manual Settings And there are methods for Enhancing your Photo Engraves and Cutting Out a Shape as well. (You can click on the topic headers in the left-hand column for even more information.) That particular page is also handy if you have any p…

Stick with it, you’ll be cutting stuff in no time.

[markevans36301]

Okay, the links above are valad, start there but let me just explane very quickly.

I’d give you a step by step but I don’t use AI but you are right, the will not cut rasters. An SVG can be either a raster or a vector or both because this file type is basically just a drawer to keep things in.
here it is, @Jules has covered it so many times it is in pdf format!

Adobe Illustrator - Auto-Trace

AI_autotrace.pdf (550.7 KB) Tutorial by @cynd11

[marmak3261]

They are teaching you how to fish. I am ok with giving you a fishing rod, as long as you learn how to use it.

Right click on this image and save the file in a location you can get to.

User the Add Artwork button and Upload this file in the workspace where you have added the JPEG.

Delete the shapes you don’t need or ignore them. You can resize them too. You can rotate them with the top handle. You can constrain the rotation to 45 degree increments by holding down shift.

I know, I’m an enabler. But that’s ok.

Promise me you will read “the first three prints”.

What vector program are you using?

[bansai8creations]

Inkscape is a decent program that’s FREE to download & reasonably easy to learn to use for making shapes that are true cutting lines that can be saved as SVG.

[Xabbess]

(Maybe enabling, but all the same…very kind of you)

[hinesfamily]

Thank you very much for the help. I am currently using Illustrator but just learning it. I have a very large learning curve.

[dan]

I don’t blame you! It took me a long time to learn it too. Click and hold this button:

then click the ellipse tool, or just press the ‘L’ key for a shortcut.
Choose no stroke, and any color fill: (stricken)
Choose no fill, and any color stroke:

and draw the circle around your work. It will be imported as a cut line. Good luck!

[jbmanning5]

@dan

Choose no stroke, and any color fill:

Graphic is right, words are reversed

[dan]

Struck!

[hinesfamily]

marmak, it worked great. Thank you so much for your help. The coins came out perfect.