Laser engraver for carving patterns.

[dikman]

To change it to vector I have to use the trace function first, which gives me a vector image, but I can't see anywhere in Lightburn that will let me isolate individual or part lines into different layers (it may be there but I haven't figured it out if it is). I have successfully changed the image to a vector but the linework is too thick and when I engrave it and then run the swivel knife over it I'm left with an "outline" or edging from the burning alongside the tooling. Searching has shown that Adobe Illustrator will let me convert the thick vector lines to a thin line using the artwork function, but I don't have Illustrator (nor am I about to buy it!) and thus far I haven't found any other programme that can do this function.

It looks like I'm heading down another rabbit hole.

30 mins. later: ok, it looks like I need to duplicate the image and assign a different colour layer to each duplicate (as many times as I need to vary individual lines). This still wouldn't allow for a line that tapers in cut depth along its length, this would have to be done manually with a swivel knife. Plus each layer would need editing to remove parts that don't need cutting. I've been dabbling in Inkscape to use as a suitable drawing programme but it's far from being user-friendly or intuitive. Overall it seems a clumsy way of doing anything.

Whilst engraving the lines is great to use the cut as a guide for the swivel knife it looks like the best way is going to be finding the settings that only just engrave the image with just enough burning to see the outline and leave a minimal marking on the leather and then use the swivel knife normally.

Edited March 31, 2024 by dikman

[Bert03241]

I don't know anything about Lightburn and very little about Inkscape. I use coreldraw. I ungroup everything , then I make everything a hairline. Then I can assign each line a color, and set power and speed to what ever I want.

[dikman]

Interesting, that's good to know. I downloaded an earlier version of Coreldraw but being a trial version it won't let me import images so isn't very useful. I'll look into it further.

[dikman]

Another few hours down the rabbit hole (it's getting bloody deep!). Finally figured out how to import a file into Coreldraw, managed to ungroup and apply the hairline but there's no way to save it, believe it or not the window that opens up for it extends down off the screen and I can't find a way to move it up! Also, Coreldraw won't let me save it as an .svg file, only a .cdr file. I can import the .cdr into Inkscape, and then save it as an .svg but when I import that into Lightburn the the laser tracks the image but doesn't actually turn on the laser to burn. All very bizarre. My laser is quite capable of burning a very fine line - but thus far I can't convert my image to do that.

My language has been somewhat colourful of late.

[toxo]

I don't know how many times I've said I'd like to learn this stuff.  I use Fireworks MX2004 and I can do a lot of basic stuff but not even a tiny fraction of what it's capable of.

Trouble is if I try to go further I get a headache and in six months time I've forgotten it and have to learn it all over again.

[dikman]

Well, I finally got a fine line image that printed a, well, fine line. Thanks Bert, for letting me know it could be done. It's been a long frustrating process!! One of the issues that wasted a lot of time is that the trial version of Coreldraw won't let you save an .svg file. Virtually anything else can be saved but not that, nor do they tell you that. My solution - save it as a Coreldraw file (.cdr) then import it to Inkscape and then save it from there as .svg. Slightly convoluted but it works. The other issue is that the version I'm using (X7) has a bug that doesn't always let you convert a .bmp to RGB, which creates a save error. There were other issues too, but I won't bore anyone with them. Now that I have a slight understanding of the process I'll try and find a free programme that will do what I need.

It's also occurred to me that maybe I don't need to tool something like a narrow belt, if I can lightly burn the pattern on the belt, use the swivel knife to lightly add the missing details and then apply antique paste it should subtly highlight the cut pattern? Something to think about.

[dikman]

Yay! I finally found out how to convert my .jpg/.bmp image into a vector .svg file in Inkscape AND end up with thin lines!

Inkscape is pretty good, for a free programme, but is not user-friendly or intuitive. I'd better write all this down before I forget how to do it.

[Bert03241]

I use coreldraw 5 which I bought years ago took me a while to figure it out and like everything I only use about 5% of what it can do. I last year I started getting message from corel that my copy was illegal and I had to buy a new copy,  well screw that I paid good money for this program many years ago , I beached to corel but they wouldn't listen . A friend of mind had the same problem but he found a hack that lets us still use the program , but you have to apply the hack about every third time you open corel kind of a PITA but at least I can still use it.

I found that inkscape works better then corel to convert images to vectors so if I have to I use inkscape to convert then import to corel.

Glad you found a solution that works for you.

 

Edited April 3, 2024 by Bert03241