2nd cut in a project?

Hi all,

New to lasers and I’m trying to engrave a Logo for a company. With my CNC I can do multiple cuts, but I don’t see a way to do this with Lightburn. If I use the logo as a Jpeg I get the results in colour difference, but the burn isnt crisp clear. I’ve converted the logo to vectors but then the software doesn’t “fill in” part of it like it does with an imgae.

nva4

So as a jpeg this burns around the letters and the yellow diamond becomes dithered. is there a way to achive this with an .ai file? I dont see how I can fill the yellow diamond, or how I can make it cut separately from the rest of the logo.

Thanks in advance!

Andy

You set the parts to ‘fill in’ to scan. Vector would be the way I would do this.

What I would do with this Andy is import the Jpeg in to Inkscape first and doall the work in there.

Trace it put it on a path and then import it to LB.

You can then select all the shapes independently, such as the Diamond and put it on a different layer / colour to raster or just a cut job to leave the Diamond shape.

Not clear what you mean by “do multiple cuts”. There are several ways to define the cutting parameters within LightBurn. At the highest level, cuts are defined in colored “layers”. Double-click a layer to expose the details of that cut in the ‘Cut Settings Editor’. Type of cut (image, scan, cut, scan & cut) and the options for each are defined in these dialogs. You can set each layer to cut once, cut multiple times (number of passes) and the order in which you want each object cut.

Here is a bit more detail: https://github.com/LightBurnSoftware/Documentation/blob/d9fd250605ec2be6d678b5592e830eac09295250/Operations.md#laser-operations

Starting with an image, you can convert it to a vector using the ‘Image Trace’ feature and then define your desired cuts to these objects as you see fit.

There are some good resources to help with understanding LightBurn here: First time users - welcome!

A lot of info here, I’ll explore each one and let you know how I get on.

Thanks a lot guys I really appreciate the help!

Andy

@Silvers, LightBurn has the same “Trace” feature found in Inkscape. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6lQrcf2DtI

Documentation can be found here: https://github.com/LightBurnSoftware/Documentation/blob/c486180cfac30f5237872f7e10ec2d463ec3a18a/TracingImages.md#tracing-images

I first tried layers as it seemed like the easiest way to go as the diamond was a separate shape :slight_smile:
Once I put it as a second layer (I didnt know it was as simple as selecting a colour at the bottom, the video showed that) I could change the diamond as a second path (thats what I ment in my first post, wrong terms sorry)

Now with the 2nd layer, I can change it to scan and it makes lines, but is there a way to dither that shape? I only see the dither option when I have inserted an image.

Again, thanks for the help!

@Rick Yes I have seen that and I do use it but Inkscape node edit is much easier to use in my experience.

Only my opinion and what I find.

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I’ve downloaded and installed Inkscape, thanks for the tip! and now i need more hours of having to learn that! :persevere:

:grin:

You are correct, dither is an option for images, not vectors. If you want to have that object dithered (your “diamond” shape) it will need to be an image, but I am not understanding why you want to do this. If you are looking to change the way the diamond looks, you can change the scan settings to maybe ‘Cross-hatched’, change the ‘Line Interval’ (gap between lines scanned) or change the ‘Scan Angle’ to alter the direction of scan to have it stand out from the other objects. Maybe provide an picture of what you want the output to look like so we can direct you a bit better.

Dither is currently only for images, but it’s something I’ve considered allowing for fills as well, along with a few different pattern types. For the moment, the best choice is to leave dithered / shaded stuff as an image and just let LightBurn use the original image, and then use the Trace feature to do cutouts. The trace should align very closely with the source image.

I first burnt the image and it dithered the diamond, but the quality of the logo was more blurred.Then I burnt just the vectors and it was much clearer. I sent these 2 samples to my customer and they prefer the diamond being dithered. So now I had the idea to make the first logo more clear by doing it this way… Here are some pis so you can understand better.

Thanks!

Andy

TBH Andy I have been asking my customers to provide me with an .Svg file from the start as the quality can be effected in the finished job.

You would be surprised how many say “oh yeah, no problem I already have one”

Have you thought of adding a square and then rotate it to look like a diamond and just engrave the outer edges of it?

Just done a quick trace and added it as below. ! worth a try.

Sorry fot the late reply, was busy working on something else over the weekend.

That looks nice, I’ll do a test and ask the customer if they like it, or I suppose I would have to import a blank picture and reduce it to the size.

Thanks for all the help everyone!

Andy