Creating a Vector outline

vaeevictiss · Postby **vaeevictiss** » Wed Sep 24, 2014 11:59 pm

Hello all,

Im new to using inkscape, and im trying to create a vector outline that can be cut with an epilog laser. I took a simple jpg and used the trace bitmap feature to get the outline. However, it will only raster, not vector cut. My issue, is the program wont let me set the line thickness to .001 that the laser requires. If I try, it just snaps back to .100.

I read a couple threads here about making it solid red, saving it as a pdf and printing it from Reader...none of which work.

I dont get why there just isnt an option to set it to .001.

Any ideas, or am i missing a ton of steps. It seems ridiculous that id have to sit here for an hour with a trace tool just to get a thin line. Is there an easier way?

tylerdurden · Postby **tylerdurden** » Thu Sep 25, 2014 2:52 am

I'd use the fill stroke panel. Save copy as pdf, print pdf to Epilog.

vaeevictiss · Postby **vaeevictiss** » Thu Sep 25, 2014 3:43 am

thats the problem. it isnt letting me.

In the pic below, you can see the original jpg to the left. I did "Trace Bitmap" and ended up with the outline to the right. This is what i would like to vector cut with the laser. In the Fill and Stroke area, you will see it is at .100. This is the lowest i can go. If i try to go to .001 it will just snap right back to .100.

is there a different way i need to be doing this?

(I know it says "px" below, i had forgotten to change it for the screenshot, but it does that with "in" also).

Lazur · Postby **Lazur** » Thu Sep 25, 2014 5:13 am

It seems from the screenshot that the selected path doesn't have any stroke at all.
So probably run the trace bitmap function with brightness cutoff instead edge detection.
Ungroup object, select path and set no fill but stroke at the fill and stroke panel.
-first you have to set a stroke paint attribute, before setting the stroke style-

And by the way this can be constructed quickly too without tracing.

tylerdurden · Postby **tylerdurden** » Thu Sep 25, 2014 5:18 am

Lazur has beat me to it...

It seems the stroke is "unset".

Check that the color of the stroke is set to "Flat" and fill set to none. Any fills will be etched as raster by the Epilog.

vaeevictiss · Postby **vaeevictiss** » Thu Sep 25, 2014 5:59 am

Lazur URH wrote:It seems from the screenshot that the selected path doesn't have any stroke at all.
So probably run the trace bitmap function with brightness cutoff instead edge detection.
Ungroup object, select path and set no fill but stroke at the fill and stroke panel.
-first you have to set a stroke paint attribute, before setting the stroke style-

And by the way this can be constructed quickly too without tracing.

Awesome, this worked! It allowed me to set the line to .001 this way.

Thanks.

Now my problem is that trying to print from pdf is coming out really tiny.

on inkscape, i set my document size to the laser bed size which is 24"x18" the image i made i sized down to 3"

when i save and open in reader and try to print, im guessing it is trying to scale for a standard sheet of paper and tries cutting this tiny shape out. I even tried the option to "Choose paper source by PDF page size". This seems to print it bigger, but not all the way. Seems there is still a scaling issue.

Thanks again!

tylerdurden · Postby **tylerdurden** » Thu Sep 25, 2014 6:11 am

There are also document size settings in the Epilog interface.

I always check the PDF properties and ensure the document size matches the page size in Inkscape and matches the Epilog settings.

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