I’m trying to make a box that slots into some holes…everything lines up in Autodesk as well as Inkscape (images attached) but then when I print the parts out, it doesn’t align. I’m stumped. Any idea why? The box itself fits together great…but it doesn’t ‘plug’ into the base because it’s off-kilter.
I have no answer, but the first thing that strikes me is it is off by approximately the thickness of the material… 
Were you using Fusion 360?
Yeah I was.
Oh, that’s interesting. I just noticed that it’s because the part is being slightly scaled down, when I import it into the glowforge. The base has a width of 60 mm, but when I print it, it comes out to be 51 mm. How strange.
I think my SVG was corrupt somehow. Even though it said 60mm in Inkscape it was importing as 51mm. I just copied my vector outline to a new file and re-saved it. It looks to be the correct dimensions now.
Probably a result of different programs using different DPI settings. For reasons that escape me almost everything that does SVG exports in pixels rather than real-world units (even though SVG supports real units) which causes scaling issues when programs disagree on how many pixels there are in an inch. (72, 75, 90, and 96 DPI are all commonly used.)
I’ve started using PDF instead of SVG in a lot of places just to avoid the DPI problem, but that doesn’t always work either: transparent PNGs embedded into PDFs often turn into opaque images with clipping paths, but the GFUI doesn’t support clipping paths yet.
That’s really good to know. Thanks for mentioning.
If that is true then it is the wrong way to import/export both vector art and bitmap/pixel art. Using pixels as a unit creates incompatiblities, and workflow difficulties. Tech support will be tied up chasing scaling issues.
The standards most used are Metric, inch, although in typography there are additional standards to also include (maybe “points” and “?”).
It’s because SVG format was created specifically for screens not print. It’s an XML-based vector image format for two-dimensional graphics with support for interactivity and animation developed by the World Wide Web Consortium to offer a vector alternative to .gif, .jpg and .png raster image files used on websites.
Thanks for posting this. I’m glad you figured it out!
