I have always held out hope that Carvewright would give us an easy way to import line drawn artwork for V-carve jobs. Instead, if I understand the process as it stands, we have a few hoops we can jump through or we can buy a bunch of add-ons and get sometimes ok results that require a bunch of tweaking in the DXF importer.
This is my starting point for the example... a pretty simple SVG drawing.
To get this image into Designer I need to have some expensive Font software with an image trace add-one. This allows me to then insert the image into a font and use CENTERLINE for the carve. ( Using Font software because I am still using standard version of designer for the reason that I have never seen an easy way to do this with any upgrades/add-ons offered by Carvewright )
The results are OK but not very impressive - Centerline is erratic ( though I see they say it's been improved in newer versions of Designer but I am not convinced I'd be happy or see improvements that match the next example after this one). This is the resulting V-carve. Part of the issue is the image trace software for the font package creates a copy that isn't stellar but it's what I am stuck with. Going in and editing by hand is an absolute NO.. this image is incredibly simple when compared to some of the V-carve jobs I have run on my Carvewright and it would require DAYS of fixing all the points that cause the jaggedness you see.
Now I have been nearing the time when I am looking at another machine.. it was going to be another carvewright even though I am not happy with the V-carve abilities but I have hundreds of projects that are sometimes duplicated and the form factor of the machine is a perfect fit for me and my needs. BUT... I have been looking at Inventables EASEL software and their machine ( but the software apparently will work with other machines via standard g-code output )
Visually, Designer and the Carvewright don't come close to the speed I can import a file and the apparent resulting carve, based on the preview... which if it's as accurate as the preview of Designer jobs... it's hands down better than the Carvewright results.
With Easel, it's as simple as importing the original SVG file...
Then applying the V-carve bit and look at the stellar results I would get on the machine end... This is night and day between what I have currently.
So... can anyone offer me up a solution that is as easy with the carvewright? I have looked at conforming vectors but they require you apply a profile to achieve the different depth to match the original artwork... obviously this will result is less than exact copies and a lot of extra time. Another thread from a few years back seems to indicate that with the DXF add-on I can take my SVG art, convert it to DXF and import that way? But DXF import looks like it's very picky about the way the vectors are imported and it's still not entirely clear whether it will replicate my artwork EXACTLY as it looks in SVG form.
I have loved my Carvewright and will keep it but I really need a reason to not move onto the Inventable platform after seeing what EASEL can do.