Help With Cutting out Lettering ,,,,,pulling my hair out

Post about using Inkscape with cutters or plotters.
phil-wales
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Oct 16, 2018 3:27 am

Help With Cutting out Lettering ,,,,,pulling my hair out

Postby phil-wales » Tue Oct 16, 2018 8:50 am

Hi Guys.
Hope some one can help i been trying for over a week and still cant get it :evil: absolute beginner by the way so plz be gentle,
what i want to do is cut out and engrave on a k40 laser so
Everthing in red i want cut out,
Everthing in blue vector engrave,
Everthing in black rastor engrave,
i know every thing in read should be a line so need to reduce that about the only thing i can get right is everything in black
it started off as a jpeg image from the web and i added the 2 santas also jpeg ,
this is just a pic to try and show what i need
hope u can understand what im trying to get at i not very good at explaining things lol
if any one could point me at a walkthru for dummys im ur man lol
looked at loads of youtube videos but nothing that helps :(
any help plz i would be very greatfully

Many thx
Phil

https://imageshack.com/i/pmEhEFexp

https://imageshack.com/a/img922/4504/EhEFex.png

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brynn
Posts: 10309
Joined: Wed Sep 26, 2007 4:34 pm
Location: western USA
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Re: Help With Cutting out Lettering ,,,,,pulling my hair out

Postby brynn » Fri Oct 19, 2018 7:36 am

Unfortunately, we can't help you with your cutter/engraver machine. You'll have to either find the documentation for your machine, or find a forum or some other online documentation, to learn how to use it.

I guess what you need to do is change the red and blue objects to vector paths for cutting or engraving, right? You should be able to import the JPG, and use Path menu > Trace Bitmap. Use the multiple trace option "Colors" and set for 4 Scans. Also check Smooth, Remove Background.

When the trace is finished, it will be right on top of the original JPG, and it might look like nothing has happened. But in fact, you have what you need.

Object menu > Ungroup. That breaks everything apart into separate pieces.

As far as I understand, you want to use some feature of your machine which will trace raster images, for the black parts. Since Trace Bitmap has traced everything, you'll need to delete all the black parts. After that, it would seem that your image is ready to send to the cutter. Of course I have no idea how to do that.

If your machine needs some special format, such as DXF or gcode or something, Inkscape can do that. Whether it's in the Save As menu or comes from an extension, depends on specifically what you need. Since you didn't say, I can't offer any suggestion.

But now you have the red and blue vector paths, and the black parts are still connected to the original JPG, so they are raster. Is that what you need?

Edit
Personally, since Inkscape can so easily create text, I probably would draw that image from scratch in Inkscape, rather than search around for raster images made by someone else. The text would come out much more precise. Although perhaps by the time you cut everything out and engrave it, you lose all that precision anyway. But I just thought I'd mention that it doesn't make sense to trace text, when Inkscape can create text. Personally, I would still need to import the santas, because I can't draw very well. But anyway, just a thought.

phil-wales
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Oct 16, 2018 3:27 am

Re: Help With Cutting out Lettering ,,,,,pulling my hair out

Postby phil-wales » Sat Oct 20, 2018 2:21 pm

Thx brynn
Will have a go at what u sad


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