Creating irregular shapes

I’m curious how others achieve this;

I use SolidWorks, the 3D CAD program and drawing the quadrant shown here literally took me 40 seconds from scratch. However, trying to do this or similar ‘simple’ shapes within Lightburn frustrates the hell out of me! So, how would you do it? I’m hoping I’m missing something as having to resort to Solidworks for anything other than a really basic profile is not ideal.

Quadrant

Hm. I usually do all these things in fusion360 and export it to LB. Import the dxf file. In lb I only do slight changes.

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I use SWX as well. Why not just export your sketch as a DXF file?

Draw a square 200 x 200 go to shape properties tab and choose your corner radius. Select shape, go to edit > convert to path. Select edit nodes tool, click shape, select all nodes on bottom left corner and press the D key to delete them, then drag the diagonal line out to whatever curve you want.

Hi Dennis. That’s what I do at the moment but for simple shapes I’d rather be able to create directly in Lightburn.

Skærmbillede 2020-07-15 kl. 17.48.58

not as fast as you (approx. 6.5 min) but without professional background in cad work and only made in Lightburn, I am more than satisfied. The only thing I’m a little jealous of are your nice measuring arrows … but it might also come one day in LB

Made in lightburn, about 20 seconds

Lightburn is and works as laser control software, it is impossible to turn it into a real cad program which by the way typically costs factor 10 of LB, (if you do not use freeware) For more demanding tasks I also use Inkscape, but it is not so often more.

…all roads lead to Rome

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Jon, similar but what steps did you take?

The hardest part of this design would be the different radiused corners. If they were all the same radius, you could just use the offset tool to do it, but since they’re different, and two are on intersections between curves and lines, it won’t be easy. The corner radius tool will be improved to handle such cases, but it’s fantastically harder than what we have now.

LightBurn was never intended to be a full creation tool, but has evolved over time to be pretty close. Remember, you’re comparing a $4000 piece of software to an $80 one - there are likely going to be some compromises. :slight_smile: It will continue to improve.

Hi Oz. My main concern was that I was finding it difficult to create shapes when it could be easy but I was doing something wrong. I think it has now been established that’s not the case. I do also appreciate that Lightburn is not an alternative to a drawing or CAD program. Lightburn continues to evolve and I look forward to every update with interest. Many thanks for the feedback.

For a slightly simpler version of the shape you wanted, I’d create a circle, ‘Arrange > Break Apart’ (Alt+B) or node edit to remove one of the arcs, connect with lines, then use the offset tool to round the corners, like this:

Arc + Lines, Alt+J to join all together:
image

Offset inward by 20:
image

Then outward by 20:
image

To complete the radius 30 corner, cut off the single corner then use ‘Extend’ to reconnect the lines, then the radius tool for that one corner:
image

400 dia circle, 200 sqr box, select both b & l to align to bottom and left.
Boolean intersect, radius corners with radius tool

Steve

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