Inkscape WRITTEN tutorials?

Okay I am wanting to do some simple cutouts on glowforge. I thought I had it figure out how to convert my png files I have already worked with in PS but it is giving me a double cut line as well as an engrave line. So . … are there any WRITTEN steps anywhere . . I’m a reader and not a watcher and every youtube video I have found just drags with so much stuff that doesn’t apply . . . I know how to shut the engrave off but that doesn’t take away the second cut line so it’s doing a double pass essentially when it alot of time does not need to.

Please WRITTEN tutorials. . . youtube is not user friendly not to mention all of the pop ups I seem to get ugh.

Inkscape has tutorials on their official site, which you can access through the help menu.

You need to simply delete the inner (or outer) line(s). You can avoid them by modifying your source image, i.e. filling areas you only want to outline.

Without seeing what you’re working with, it’s hard to be more specific.

So…

Searching the forum can be tricky, but if you look for “inkscape tutorials” you’ll find them here, many many times.

https://community.glowforge.com/search?q=inkscape%20tutorials

For example, another thread on exactly this:

And Inkscape’s own tutorials:

I also like tavmjong bah’s tutorials. As is evidenced by the number of times I’ve recommended them on the forum.

You can also ask google, there are a lot out there. There’s so much info about this your main problem will be carving out the time to actually do the work of reading it.

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All I want to do is to cut this rabbit out . . . this is my png file. so it has no background and no fill when I save it in Photoshop. But when I open it in Inkscape as a PNG, if I save it simply as an SVG it will not let me cut it and only gives me the engrave option. If I do the trace bitmap then it ends up giving me a stroke twice with white in between the two? If I try to delete the nodes it deletes the whole thing.

I feel like I"m making this way harder than i need to, but I just want a set of instructions I can print off so I can practice doing it over and over it so I can do it easier!

In inkscape, set your artboard to 20 x 12 inches. Fit the image to the artboard. Select it. Go to the path section up top, select “trace to bitmap”. select preview. Increase the brightness cutoff threshold to .990, enough to have a good dark outline, but not black out your image. Hit ok. Select your original image (still with a red outline), and delete it. Save your new image as an svg.

Yup, but you’re close.

Do the trace, then select your bunny and do Path->break apart, and then Path->union. Unset your fill, and set a stroke. Boom, cutout outline ready to rock.

Trivial, really… once you know how to do it!

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Here’s your freebie:

bunny

The only additional thing I did was scale it to 4" tall.

The other thing to think about is that this is warts and all, it shows imperfections in the original art, some wobbliness of lines that make it look hand drawn. If that was your intent, then carry on. if not, you’re in for some cleanup work with the nodes.

Path->simplify can sometimes help here, but I tried it and it was a trainwreck. I don’t recommend it.

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It’s still doing a double cut.

The reason you were getting double lines is because trace follows edges of bitmaps, you have two edges - inside and out. The fastest solution is to bring that image in as filled, then trace will just give you the perimeter. Other methods described work fine as well.

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Sorry, left out that step. You’ll have to select the image, go to path, break apart. Then, in view/outline mode, choose one path and delete it. Or, you can fill the image before Trace bitmap.

Ooooorrr, you could go back and do what I said:

No fuss no muss, it’s two keystrokes. Piece of cake.

Sorry, didn’t see that you had put that. Too many irons in the fire tonight.

Heh, no worries, your way works too, and is really useful in more complicated scenarios. With a simple shape like this, the union trick is a nice shortcut. I post things all the time without noticing some key detail, the price of moving quickly :wink:

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Okay . … THAT worked . . . so I’m going to write these steps out on here so I can copy and paste them. OMW . . . I knew I was missing a step somewhere!!! THANK YOU SOOOO MUCH!!!

Path
Trace to Bitmap
Brightness threshold .99
Select
Move Trace Outline to side
select Red Original Outline Delete
Move Black Trace Outline back to the artboard
Path
Break Apart
Path
Union
Click X by Stroke
Shift click on Color
Save as Plain SVG

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I do as much as I can with keystrokes. I’d amend that to be more like:
Photoshop:
Create path with black lines in the first place. Save out to png.

Inkscape:

  1. insert Path to inkscape
  2. Trace to Bitmap (Just about any brightness threshold will be fine if you start black but fiddle with it if necessary.)
  3. select your new path, cut (control-x).
  4. select all (control-a). hit delete.
  5. paste in place. (Control-alt-v) Now your previously cut traced path (from step 3) is back.
  6. Break apart. (control-shift-k)
  7. Union (control-shift-+)
  8. click X by color bar. (this will delete the fill)
  9. Shift click black. (this will add a black stroke)
  10. Save. (control-s) No need to save as plain svg, inkscape native svgs work fine.

So it’s like mouse-mouse-mouse, control-x, control-a, delete, control-alt-v, control-shift-k, control-shift-plus, mouse-mouse, control-s.

The whole process is very fast once you get a handle on the key shortcuts. :slight_smile:

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Thank you again for your help! I “practiced” again this morning so I would not forget the steps lol :slight_smile:

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