Introducing GF SVG Tools!

[jazzychad]

Hi all,

I have been working on GF SVG Tools (which stands for, uh.. Good Freakin’ SVG Tools).

I like Inkscape a whole lot, but there are things I commonly do with SVG files to prepare them for Glowforge upload that are tedious or very difficult in the standard SVG editing apps. So I made this web tool to help me, and I think everyone here might enjoy it, too.

GF SVG Tools

My personal main use-case is importing DXF files, converting to SVG, connecting all the paths from the segments, and ordering them with the hex color codes for laser cutting. (I design a lot of stuff in Onshape and it doesn’t export sketches in svg)

You can import existing SVG or DXF files. There’s a button to “Connect Paths” which will take any segments that are logically part of the same path and combine them.

For example, when I export the face of this pumpkin model from Onshape as a DXF it has 176 different segments, but there are really only 5 paths.

Importing into GF SVG Tools and connecting the paths brings it down the 5 we expect!

You can rename groups and paths for ease of reference:

But the most important feature (in my opinion) is being able to reorder the paths and groups so that when you upload it to Glowforge the design remains intact and the ordering of the steps is exactly how you want it.

For example, with this pumpkin, I want the holes cut from left-to-right first, then the outline.. so I can reorder the paths by clicking and dragging:

Then I click the “Apply ordered colors” button:

Et voila, the colors of the paths are assigned hex values that will tell Glowforge what order to use for the different paths:

Now I can click the “Download SVG” button, and then when I import it into the Glowforge web app, everything is ordered properly! Magic!

This really is just the beginning of what I want to add to this site. But it’s already proving very useful to me. I want it to be a useful tool for the community! Please try it out, and I’m happy to take any feedback and feature requests. Cheers!

[tim1724]

@jazzychad

There’s a button to “Connect Paths” which will take any segments that are logically part of the same path and combine them.

For example, when I export the face of this pumpkin model from Onshape as a DXF it has 176 different segments, but there are really only 5 paths.

Oh wow, that’s super useful!

But the most important feature (in my opinion) is being able to reorder the paths and groups so that when you upload it to Glowforge the design remains intact and the ordering of the steps is exactly how you want it.

Also super useful. I mean, I could do that manually in other programs (I keep a color palette of ordered colors among my custom palettes in the macOS standard color picker) but this is easier for most people and makes reordering things so much better than doing it manually.

[jazzychad]

@tim1724

I could do that manually in other programs

Certainly.. and I’ve done that for years, but I’m pretty tired of it Doing it with one button click has already saved me soooo much time. Especially when I discover I need to re-order some operations and don’t have to re-color everything all over again by hand!

[dklgood]

It is obvious that you put lots of thought and effort into this tool. Thank you for sharing it with us. I suspect many will find it quite helpful.

[sqw]

joining segments automatically is a brilliant tool - don’t need it often, but when you do….

Good stuff, look forward to seeing more.

[rvogt]

Thanks for sharing this!!

[chris1]

Nice work! Thanks for making this and sharing it!

[Thumper369]

Nice work. I love it when people combine their talents and passions.

[cynd11]

Wow, thanks so much!

[deirdrebeth]

Hey @rider.sg, maybe this might solve your issue with the segments?

[matt22]

This is really useful for a lot of reasons. I have always found the built in DXF to SVG converter Glowforge uses to be lacking. Sometimes it groups things, sometime it doesn’t. It doesn’t recognize connected paths, and instead just cuts nearby line segments in some unknown order. Being able to cut the holes out before the outer profile cut is great. This insures the part doesn’t have a chance to move a bit before inner cuts are made. Could you automate this ordering from innermost to outermost in your program?

Thanks for putting in the effort!

Matt H

[jazzychad]

@matt22

Could you automate this ordering from innermost to outermost in your program?

That’s an interesting thought! Let me think about that. If I can figure it out I will make it a button you can click in the Tools section and will let you know!

[ca_worth]

That is really slick!!!

[MakerMatthew]

Wow! Great work! Will Need to try that!

[dwardio]

Thanks for sharing this! The reordering feature will be quite useful when using files created by others especially.

[angi]

Not only is the whole idea of designing your own software tool to use super impressive, but I’d just be happy to understand half of what you said! I have so many amazing ideas in my head and so I have to look for files that come close to those ideas and then try to figure out how to tweak them to get close to what I’m envisioning. It takes so long and never happens and I end up doing a lot of “hand-work” to achieve whatever I’m trying to create. So, I for one think it’s amazing you created this tool.