Mask error message

[simonson67]

I’m getting an error message that we can’t do Masks Yet every time I try to upload words or anything that has multiple parts. I have never had an issue before. It won’t print at all! Any advise?

[eflyguy]

Convert text to paths. Beyond that you might need to share your file so we can see what you are dealing with.

[dklgood]

Clipping masks are not supported in the Glowforge interface.

[simonson67]

Yep that is what it’s telling me. Can you explain what that is? I’m not exactly tech savvy, I’m learning as I go but this has completely stopped production.

[cynd11]

It would help to know what software you are using to generate the designs. I could tell you how to remove the clipping mask in Illustrator but I suspect you are using something else.

Here’s a discussion of clipping masks in Inkscape in case that’s what you are using:

Adobe Illustrator to Inkscape: clipping paths and masks

Continuing the discussion from From Illustrator to Inkscape to Glowforge: eight cats!: At this point in time the Glowforge workspace displays an error message about clipping paths if there is one in the design file. So far it hasn’t affected how to do the print settings or arrange the objects. But I couldn’t let it go so I spent some time trying to figure out the source of the clipping paths that appear in the files that have been done in Illustrator and converted to a PDF or SVG. I’d apprecia…

[kittski]

It’s hard to know what the issue really is without seeing a screen shot of it or the file like Eflyguy mentioned. He’s probably right though and your issue may be the text hasn’t been converted correctly and that’s why it won’t run.

The link @cynd11 will have everything you need, but I also wanted to mention that you can ignore the clip path message and the GF will still run the file. It won’t look like it did in your design software though and it will engrave the entire image that is hidden by a mask. It might screw up your print, but it might not. Just depends on what it is you’re printing.

[eflyguy]

Clip allows the subtraction of a portion of one object using another overlapping object, but the original base object is not actually altered so you can still work with it as it was drawn. You can then convert that to a path, but that path still defines the entire original shape with the visible portion is “clipped”, which is not supported by the GF UI.

In vector design software, you preferably would use Difference or Subtraction to actually remove one shape from another, leaving a path that only follows the modified result - which is supported by the GF UI.

Mask effectively multiplies the color of a base object by the luminosity of a second object. If you think in terms of black and white, then the resulting output is very similar to clipping, but it’s also useful for other tasks in raster/bitmap editing, I’m not experienced enough to know where it might be used to create vector graphics we would use for the GF.

[vee]

Thanks for the help on this thread, everyone! @simonson67, I see that you already emailed us about this and we’re working on it there, so I’m going to close this topic.