I have played with this for two days and can’t figure it out. I need to cut the mag out with the camo design intact. But I also need the mag window to be blank so the laser skips over it.
Some one here gave me some advice about using the Boolean tool but that just confuses me.
Appreciate any help. Thanks.
Pmag-cut-out.lbrn2 (481.2 KB)
Like this? I quickly did this using Cut Shapes. I wasn’t sure whether you needed the outer or inner line for the cutout. I will type up the process later. The file is below.
Start by turning off filled rendering, but leave the camo set to fill. This will keep the shapes closed when you delete them. Select the outline line you want to use and duplicate 4 times(because there are 4 distinct layers of camo). Shift click one of the camo layers in the cuts/layers panel. This selects everything on the layer, then shift click on the outline.
Wow. Thank you. I’ll try to follow the process tomorrow. Thanks, again.
Not sure what that advice was… but you can certainly use the Boolean Tool , for example:
Use ‘Show’ to work on one group at a time:
For each camo layer;
Group the shapes.
Also group the mag outline together with the window and dupicate that to each camo layer. (Alt+D then click on the layer color to send it to that layer) x 4)
Now that we have in each camo layer two groups of shapes, the mag and the camo, you can select both groups and use the ‘Boolean Intersect’ operation (Alt+*), and notice the internal window is taken care of automatically:
A faster method is to group shapes in each color( 4 groups) then duplicate C17 shapes four times.
Select each color and C17 and apply Cut Shapes Tool. At the end just move aside the outside shapes, ungroup and regroup the shapes for each color inside the mag and repeat for the window.
Here the quick and incomplete example:
But you have to correct your shapes first because you have overlapping shapes:
Wow. Thank you. I could swear I tried to do some of those steps. Maybe I’m hallucinating.
I’ll try to follow the process tomorrow. Thanks, again.
Guess I didn’t send the above message. Apologies.
Anyway, after many, many tries, this is what I ended up with. Looks to be correct. Do I keep the double outlines?
Thanks again. That was a learning experience.
After a lot of trial and error, I finally got it right. Thanks.
That’s up to you. I don’t know why you had them to start with.
Actually, that’s the way they came out of the trace tool.
This is because Lightburn does not have a center line trace. It traced both sides of what it sees as a wide line. Now that you know, in the future you can ungroup and delete one of them. I usually keep the best looking one.
Good to know, thanks,
Just you wait. 
As much as I’d like to be done with this, I encountered another problem (or two).
I created the outline by tracing the mag, so why doesn’t the red frame light line up with the actual mag on the laser deck. I have tried numerous different things, 4 point warp, 8 point warp and can’t get it to line up. Is there a way to lock the bottom of the design and bend the top to the right a little. Sort of straighten out the curve a bit?
Plus, in my test, the camo pattern burns over the window. I thought it would skip it.
Asking for help again. Thanks.
Could you mask the window area with tape and then make the camo pattern slightly larger so it will always get to the edges perfectly without having to worry too much about registration?
Alternatively, if you don’t want to mask the window, still keeping the outside bleed, focus on getting internal window correct (you can use the vector for the window in the project and move it with red light contour tracing unit it is perfectly placed then use it to cut the camo) - then you only need to check if the window is lined up with the red light.
I’ll try those out and see what happens. Thank you.
