Cutting out from line art..

[Ironone]

I have used my CW for many things.. but never to cut out.. and I am struggling with it.. Anyone know a easy way to cut out the attached?

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[dbfletcher]

You really have two choices. What you want is a "Centerline trace" of your drawing.. most trace programs will trace and outside edge, inside edge, and fill for each line. That ends up giving you very bad and unwanted results. What you want is just one line (basically no thickness) for the lines on the page. There are many programs that WILL do centerline traces (vector magic, corel draw, etc), but it always seems to be a bit of trial and error to get it to come out right. What is probably easier/faster is just to import the image in designer and then just use the drawing tools in designer to trace the outline of your parts. Then you can assign the cut out bit and spicify on which side of the line you want the cw to cut. I am pretty sure AskBud has video lessons on doing exactly this.

[sk8nmike]

Coreldraw would be your best bet for this, but if you don't have access to it do this. Break the picture down to board size elements, convert to Black and white then import into the Pattern editor lower until just the lines exist. Use the outline tool and then cut. Make sure that when you cut that is you flip one you flip them all..

[dbfletcher]

I ran your file thru Vector Magic when I go home tonight. I didnt really try to improve the output, I just accepted the defaults. If you would like I can also run it through the DXF importer to give you just an MPC of paths. The zip file contains and SVG format of your original jpg.

[DickB]

This can easily be done, but before I post exactly how, I need to know what is the scale of this project? There are many slots with square corners, and my concern is that the slots may be too narrow for the 1/8" or even the 1/16" cutting bit. If that is the case, instructions on how to do it will be useless.

[Ironone]

the project should be 10.5 x 17.. the slots are 1/4 inch and the wood would be 1/4 in also.. so I would have to use a sled I would think? never cut anything with 1/4" wood..

[Digitalwoodshop]

I snapped a X gear tonight.... Cutting line art... Or Tags in my case.... 4 AM and I just finished printing the back of 144 tags... Was cutting more tags in the wood shop listening on the Intercom... Head Snap and the machine power down... a tag lifted off the board and jammed the X. I have 3 orders due the 7th.

I had drawn the art for the tags then made is a carve region. Then outlined it to give a smother line and less nodes from my drawing. It also re sizes easier. The Corel to DXF is on my Wish List... It would make this easier....

It is not fancy Art but the Concept is the same... I assign the 1/4 inch bull nose bit but use a 1/16th End Mill. Assigning the 1/4 inch bit in Designer locks the feed rate in 1st gear for a smooth cut. I use double stick tape to hold the tag. The one that let go had dust on it... I use a PVC Board as my Sled.

AL

[DickB]

the project should be 10.5 x 17.. the slots are 1/4 inch and the wood would be 1/4 in also.. so I would have to use a sled I would think? never cut anything with 1/4" wood..
I suggest using a free drawing program paint.net, which you can download from paint.net. The first step is to convert the line drawing to solid objects using the Paint Bucket tool. To cut down on the amount of work, I’m using just a corner of your image. Your line drawing does not have perfectly black lines, so we need to make an adjustment to the default Paint Bucket tool setting. Open your image in paint.net. Click on the Paint Bucket tool, then drag the Tolerance bar (top center of window) from the default 50% to 20% or so (you may have to adjust this for the other pieces that I did not include in this demo).
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Next, move the Paint Bucket cursor into each cutout piece and click to paint the piece black.
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Notice that there are some imperfections – white specks in some of the pieces, and irregular edges. Here is a trick to clean that up a bit. Click Effects – Blurs – Gaussian Blur, and set the radius to about 20. (I’m using an old computer, and I had to resize your image to 40% of its resolution to make it run decently. You may need to use a larger radius value than I did if you do not resize the original image.)
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Now, to sharpen the image, click on the Paint Bucket tool and set the Tolerance bar to 70%. Move the Paint Bucket cursor to any piece, press and hold the Shift key, then click. This will paint all pieces solid black. Next, move to the white area, hold Shift, and RIGHT click. This will paint all white areas a uniform white.
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Now save the image in .png format.

Open Designer and start a new project. Click File – Import – Import Image File and select your saved image. Click Next, and in Options click Lower until the background drops away. Save the pattern.
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Select the pattern and place it on the board. While selected on the board, click the Outline tool. Delete the pattern.
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Now click each path in turn and click the Cut Path tool. You’ll need to Flip Cut the paths for the outside of the pieces.
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Easiest way, but not necessarily the most efficient, to make a sled for this project is to cut two 1/4" pieces the size of your project plus 3-1/2" each side and tape them together.

[SteveEJ]

Opened SVG file in Corel, exported as DXF, Imported with DXF Importer and then saved as MPC. This will take some tweaking but a good start. Imperfections in vectors and double lines, representing inside and outside of the thicker .SVG file, are a byproduct of automating the process.

Hope this helps and saves some work.

PS: File too big to upload so PM me with your email address and I will send you the DXF and MPC.

[Ironone]

I suggest using a free drawing program paint.net, which you can download from paint.net. The first step is to convert the line drawing to solid objects using the Paint Bucket tool. To cut down on the amount of work, I’m using just a corner of your image. Your line drawing does not have perfectly black lines, so we need to make an adjustment to the default Paint Bucket tool setting. Open your image in paint.net. Click on the Paint Bucket tool, then drag the Tolerance bar (top center of window) from the default 50% to 20% or so (you may have to adjust this for the other pieces that I did not include in this demo).
48648

Next, move the Paint Bucket cursor into each cutout piece and click to paint the piece black.
48656

Notice that there are some imperfections – white specks in some of the pieces, and irregular edges. Here is a trick to clean that up a bit. Click Effects – Blurs – Gaussian Blur, and set the radius to about 20. (I’m using an old computer, and I had to resize your image to 40% of its resolution to make it run decently. You may need to use a larger radius value than I did if you do not resize the original image.)
48655

Now, to sharpen the image, click on the Paint Bucket tool and set the Tolerance bar to 70%. Move the Paint Bucket cursor to any piece, press and hold the Shift key, then click. This will paint all pieces solid black. Next, move to the white area, hold Shift, and RIGHT click. This will paint all white areas a uniform white.
48654

Now save the image in .png format.

Open Designer and start a new project. Click File – Import – Import Image File and select your saved image. Click Next, and in Options click Lower until the background drops away. Save the pattern.
48653 48652

Select the pattern and place it on the board. While selected on the board, click the Outline tool. Delete the pattern.
48650

Now click each path in turn and click the Cut Path tool. You’ll need to Flip Cut the paths for the outside of the pieces.
48649

Easiest way, but not necessarily the most efficient, to make a sled for this project is to cut two 1/4" pieces the size of your project plus 3-1/2" each side and tape them together.


This is great.. I had about 85% of this.. but the last 15% was killing me.. thank you..

[SteveEJ]

You have email..

Hope it helps.