Laserscript user forum

Hi, just taken dellvery of a 3020 pro and got it running (with a bit of help from Chris ).

I intend to use it to suppliment my woodturning hobby and hopefully make it more profitable so I can earn some cash (I was made redundent last year so now self employed). Once I get going I promised Chris I would post some pictures which I will do but for now I am looking at software and was wondering how I would take a solid B&W clip art picture and convert it to a vector line drawing?

I have played about in a test version of Corel but was wondering if there are any freeware solutions out there? Corel is a bit expensive for me at the moment

Cheers

Dave

Hiya Dave,

Clip Art is already vector format so simply "Save as" DXF in any program that supports that output.

Converting Raster to DXF is what I do a lot of for a day job and that's not quite so simple. There aren't any programs that will do it reliably (even if they say they do) Corel Draw has a trace feature but that isn't particularly accurate and tends to convert to splines (not good). The only real way is to trace manually using AutoCAD or similar cad program.

Auto conversion programs tend to leave a lot of legacy items (tiny spots of lines and colours you don't want) that can cause all sorts of problems.

Sorry it's not better news

best wishes

Dave

Hi Dave,

Inkscape is free and not only converts raster to vector (I think a plugin is reqd (free also)) but is also a very good CAD program. Try it - its free

http://inkscape.org/download/

Hiya

I agree, have used inkscape and while it does trace line drawings the accuracy isn't brilliant. That's one of the problems with Corel as well, it tends to convert lines to splines so when saved as DXF you have limitations on various things such as scaling etc. Both Corel and Inkscape use the Stentiford Algorithm which is very good but unlike the Zang Suen it tends to place legacy drops on the finished item. ZS is great but has it's own series of issues mostly to do with curves and conversion of straight lines.
Wintop uses best combination of the two but unless your dealing with high accuracy line drawings of one pixel width you will get angular displacement and legacy drops.
For engraving they are fine but for accurate cutting automatic conversion from Raster to Vector isn't really worth beans.

Cad wise I'm stuck with AutoCAD, DeltaCAD and Inkscape are great for cad drawings but most of the stuff I do has to go in industry standard format and my clients all expect AutoCAD files (Wish it was different, 8K a year on cad packages is a right royal pain )

LaserCUT 5.3 isn't too bad if your trying to scribble something up quick, got some limitations but as it comes with the machine it can be handy (The smooth line feature is very usefull)

Daven, what sort of files are you trying to convert?

best wishes

Dave

Hi - thanks for the replies - a lot of useful information there!

I did try inkscape and was quite impressed for a free program but it crashed a couple of times, but maybe becuase I was using it on a 64bit win7 platform - or I just pushed it too far in my ignorance When my 30 trial of Coral expires i will go back to it.

The following pictures are examples of what I am trying to do - I managed to do the line drawing in Coral and finished it with MS Paint but I have also tried to take a photograph of my car and turn it into a line drawing. I suspect the acuracy will not be too much of a problem as most of the time the image will not be very large.


I got Newlydraw with the machine so not sure about LaserCUT - is it the same?

Cheers

Dave

Hiya Dave,

I don't know anything about newly draw (Chris is the man for those questions)

Let me have a go at those pictures in the morning and I'll see what I can do for you

best wishes

Dave

DXF'd and polylined to allow cutting without legacy items.

I'll catch up in the morning

best wishes

Dave

Wow thanks Dave - I didn't expect that How much do you charge for a days tuition

I am planning a day playing with the cutter so will let you know how I get on!

Cheers

Dave

Let me know what size you want the giraffe and I'll resize to suit

Simple pictures like that I can convert for you in my spare time if you want to email them over

That is the only drawback with autocad, it has a very steep learning curve, although the amount you need to know to make use of it on a laser cutter isn't that bad.

I'll see if i can get a tutorial written up at some point and post it on my site in sections. You can pick up older versions of autocad at quite reasonable prices on Ebay and it's well worth the investment. More so probably than CorelDraw.

best wishes

Dave

Thanks Dave - Newlydraw resizes quite well - I have cut it out today at around 35mm and the tail came out as thin as a hair! Fantastic!

Spent most of the rest of the day looking at software - I did find a package called Img2CAD which converted the same picture quite well and at around £70 seems reasonable. I already have CadStd so maybe between the two I can get away with it until I can upgrade (and save me pestering you Dave!)

Will try and upload some pictures tomorrow!

Cheers

Dave