Need Help Engraving Blank Spots On Inkscape

Hello, my peeps! I need some help with designing something to engrave in Inkscape. The outer line is to be cut and the inner parts are to be engraved. I want to make the white/blank spaces inside the design to be filled (to be engraved) and then I can remove the black spots that are already filled inside. Sorry if I couldn’t explain it that well, I’m kind of a beginner. TIA!

Asali Mold GF Community

Sorry, I can’t make any sense of what you’re saying. I see black and white with a red border. No grey. Restate what you’re trying to do…

Sorry for being unclear. On the file the background is grey but I forgot that when it’s uploaded to Glowforge community it’s white.

What do you mean by “then I can remove the black spots that are already filled inside”?

Is the interior a bitmap, or are the features all filled/closed paths?

All the features are filled/closed paths.

So when you load your artwork in the GFUI, you are seeing the red line as a cut and the black filled paths as engrave? And what you want instead is for the white areas that are not filled paths to be engraved instead?

Yes

Do you mean like this?

Asali Mold GF Community 2

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Yeah!

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I ungrouped everything.
Then I selected all the black parts, and hit ctrl-k to combine them.
I duplicated the outside border, and lowered it to the bottom.

Then without unclicking the red border, I pressed shift and clicked the black engrave.
Then I click Path-difference.

Then I added a fill, and removed the stroke.
Afterwards I went in to node editor tool and selected a couple of nodes from my newly formed purple border that I didn’t need, and hit ctrl-a to select all the nodes in that path.
Then I hit delete.

And finally I grouped the engrave and the border.

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Thank you so much for all the help! This is exactly what I needed!

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If any step I listed is unclear, please let me know. I use a combination of keyboard shortcuts and drop-down menu.

3 Likes

Will do!

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