I feel like an idiot for taking this long to discover this little trick, but better late than never I guessā¦
You donāt align additions to the existing cut, you align them to the PREVIEW! And they come out perfectly!
Situational Analysis:
I forgot to add the hash scores to a ring that I was cutting out of a scrap in the far reaches of the bed, and Iād already cut out the blinking ring before I realized it.
I just created another quick file that included both the ring and the correctly placed hash marks to be scored, and dragged that onto the still open fileā¦
Placed the new ring so that it covered the old Preview ring precisely, (even though it appeared to be offset from the actual cut underneath), then Ignored the rings and ran the Score. It laid the hash marks exactly where they were supposed to be on the cut.
Itās so funny about how things like this just come to us now and again. Weāre all isolated from each other, learning the same stuff from different angles. Iām sure fur every person who is like āwow, great thinking!ā Thereās probably another who is thinking āhow else would you do it?!ā ā¦And yet another who is like āwut?, just wondering how this would even come up.
Oddly, I thought about something similar last night, awake at 1am as the expectant father the day before a delivery date. I bought some leather round coaster blanks, and figured I could put those in the preview and then drag artwork over, rather than trying to align in a vacuum. @jules you at least are able to have tried out the theory. My GF is still on a UPS truck someplace. (within 30 minute driveā¦) I have a dinner party to go to tonight. Maybe I can put artwork together and get the coasters made by then? Slightly unreasonable deadline.
This has me wondering what other little tricks I use all the time and take for granted, which might be revolutionary to others who hadnāt seen them/figured them out.
Also, this trick is one of the major reason I would like to be able to see resize dimensions in the GFUI. If you have, for example, resized your design a little bit to better fit some material, resizing the second version (with the forgotten elements included) to the exact size can be quite tedious.
Geez, (smacks forehead) it never occurred to me that the displaced after-image could be used because itās - displaced! Yet I knew if you ran the file again without moving anything it would register perfectly despite the offset.
I just never put 2 & 2 together
All of a sudden that camera after image has more value than I realized.
I try, when it occurs to meā¦ but thatās the thingā¦ They arenāt tricks until someone comes along and goes, āOh, neat trick!ā
Until that happens, itās just the āobviousā way for me to do stuff, that presumably everyone else does as well.
I never know that what I might know is something that everyone doesnāt know. Iām not sure how to get those tips out except through posts where it just happens to come out. There was a ton of stuff we learned pretty early on with the PRUs and then over the summer as the software was enhanced. A lot of that was reported here but itās not easy to find in a nice capsule format. Not sure how to get it in a format that everyone could use to find out how to do stuff. Itās too bad because thereās a lot of good stuff.
Yepā¦ yesterday I was thinking about how much great info I got out the forum before my GF arrivedā¦ and how I would never have the time/energy/motivation to go back and sift through all of that if I hadnāt been following the forum (voraciously) and reading the stuff as it was posted. The Matrix is incredible, but itās a bit overwhelmingā¦ and thatās coming from someone who watched it come together, read most of the posts as they were posted, contributed tutorials. Going to it from a blank slate is kinda likeā¦ if you had never seen a movie but wanted to, and then someone hands you the entire IMDB and says ājust start here, some good stuff to be foundā.
Hehe! Yeahā¦ I ran into the same thing a few weeks ago making dominoes. Iād done the fronts, and then figured Iād create the backs while the front was engraving. Started engraving then I went āDuh. How am I going to line them up if theyāre not in the same file?!ā And, like you, I found it was stupid-simple to just add the artwork to what I just did, then line them up, ignore the front, and go.
Not to mention that the conversations here often veer off into super technical or theoretical debates about the very nature of laser cutting. Time spent reading through old threads is interesting and educational for sure, but sometimes you just want to find out whether the adhesive on the PG veneer is permanent or not, you know?
I never know that what I might know is something that everyone doesnāt know. Iām not sure how to get those tips out except through posts where it just happens to come out. There was a ton of stuff we learned pretty early on with the PRUs and then over the summer as the software was enhanced. A lot of that was reported here but itās not easy to find in a nice capsule format. Not sure how to get it in a format that everyone could use to find out how to do stuff. Itās too bad because thereās a lot of good stuff.