Hi there,
I am new in laser engraving/cutting and I would like to ask my first question
I have Neje 2S Plus laser engraver and I would like to use LightBurn SW with it - it should not be a problem based on information I already found on internet.
I am preparing some designs in Inkscape SW and my question is - What is the best fileformat to save/export from Inkscape and use in LightBurn?
Should I export design as bitmap (png) or use directly .svg files? Or some other fileformats? (I know for example Neje desktop software is working with .nc (gcode) files)
The simple answer is SVG. You should be able to use Inkscape files directly in LightBurn with the exception right now being for text entries. You will need to convert those first to path for them to come in.
This answer holds as long as what you’re doing in Inkscape is traditional vector drawings which it likely is going to be 99% of the time.
However, there may be a situation where what you are designing you want to have engraved as an image. Let’s say if you were trying to add a seamless update to a photo in Inkscape. In this case you may want to export a particular scene as a PNG file. This would be, again, in a very particular situation and you’d know it if it was something you wanted to do.
Thank you @berainlb for the answer.
Basically what I currently want to draw and engrave is Periodic table and Andrenaline as per linked pictures:
As I said, I am not going to download some picture, I will create my own design in Inkscape. So I was wondering what is more effective way - bitmap (png) or vector (svg) - to save from Inkscape and use in LightBurn
This is an interesting case. I’d say SVG is still the obvious format as this would allow you to scale and manipulate the design in LightBurn for any final adjustments without worry of distortion.
There’s no reason you couldn’t do this in PNG but you’d be more limited in what you could do in LightBurn and there would be more of a burden on you to get the image extracted just right in terms of resolution and rasterizing. There are also additional variable in terms of how images are handled in LightBurn.
Thank you
Just out of my curiosity - if I have the same design (pics I posted above) will the time to finish when engraving the same design once as SVG and next time as PNG be the same or one of these options will be most probably faster?
If the laser path is the same between the two then the times should be identical or nearly so. For example, images are typically burned left to right one row at a time (either top down or bottom up). If you chose to engrave the vector all as one giant group in the same way, then the net effect would be about the same.
However, engraving as a vector gives you more flexibility for the laser path… for example, the title could be done in one set of operations, and the elements done in another set of operations. The white space can be quickly skipped. White space in an image is run at the same speed as the rest of the image.
Additionally, there are other fill types like offset-fill or the flood fill option that provide additional flexibility.
So vector can and generally should be faster but is not guaranteed to be. And in some circumstance might be longer if the chosen path is inefficient.
