Then to import, I have to remap all the colors on my layout. This takes a hell of a long time and makes the layout look cluttered. Which stops showing the actual colors:
Plus, I often have significantly more colors in my layouts than you have in your palette. Each color is a separate parameter, and the presence of sublayers does not solve this problem.
Tell me if this can be solved? or are these program limitations.
At least the ability to make custom palette colors.
I don’t know anything about color engraving, much less parameterization.
However, I look at the two images and one seems to me to be the negative of the other.
The following question arises, isn’t the “negative image” option selected somewhere?
The first image is what I drew in coreldraw, and the second image is based on the lightburn palette. This is necessary to properly export to lightburn. It’s just that the lightburn palette does not reflect the colors of the design and this complicates the work. I have already seen similar requests on the forum and they all remained unanswered. Colored engraving has nothing to do with it. It’s just the ease of use of the program.
Ok, so if I understand correctly, from the knowledge I have it is not possible to change the colors of the Lightburn palette. The colors are only intended to distinguish the various layers and not to “color” the image.
Lightburn is not a design software so has its limitations on that field.
As a laser software I think the best option you have if Lightburn layers are not suitable for you, is divide work in two or three or more until you achive the number of layers suitable for you.
I should say a project with so many layers is a very, very complex job.
I don’t design in Lightburn. There are other programs for that. You probably don’t understand the essence of the problem. Although I may be wrong. And breaking the project into parts is pointless, it’s easier to use EZCAD. Lightburn has several advantages and because of this I want to start using it. But with complex projects there are a number of problems that I’m trying to find answers to. A small palette and the inability to assign custom colors are some of them. There are also problems with importing files and other
You are probably right Sergey!
I use Lightburn a couple of years as a hobbie. I don’t need to explore every single software capability but I already have seen some amazing projects that was created in Lightburn.
Breaking the project is not ideal, but this software as various ways to deal with that.
Better than me any developer can clarify you of Lightburn capabilities better than me.
I am just a curious hobbie user who like to explore and try some capabilities of software in my projects.
Anyway, thanks for joining the conversation. At least it helps keep the thread up. Maybe the developers will notice this thread and other similar threads. Thanks again.
I’m pretty sure that the color palette that is used, and the number of colors available is 100% tied to the colors and numbers that are available in Ruida controllers. If you did custom colors, the Ruida controller would not recognize them. Your best bet to find out for sure would be to e-mail support@lightburnsoftware.com though.
IIRC, the maximum number of layers is hard-coded in Ruida controllers and the colors match the RDWorks palette, so one can’t change and the other probably won’t.
That said, I’m impressed a fiber laser can produce more than 30 distinct colors on metal!
You can speed it up a bit with GIMP and GEGL color-warp. You can build the map once (well, 8 colors at a time), save the preset and apply it.
Alternatively, you can use G’MIC’s CLUT from after-before layers to do it all at once.
Can you post two example files, before and after as PNG (same size/resolution etc?)
The color palette in LightBurn is fixed and limited to 30 entries because of hardware limitations with DSP controllers, and some internal limitations in the software because it was originally designed for those machines.
What would your maximum layer count be for a file?
It’s not just about color. For example, I need to make honeycombs. Each honeycomb has hatching at a certain angle and this hatching should be engraved only along the line. If there are many of these honeycombs, then the existing number of layers with one setting will not solve the problem.
To solve this problem, you need three layers. You won’t solve it with sublayers. If there are many such polygons, then the limitation of 30 objects is a problem. Plus, there is no way to visualize the models normally. Not only I, but also other users of fiber lasers write about this problem here.
I work with vector files. Or I misunderstood you. I don’t speak English well, so there may be translation errors. Sorry. I don’t use raster programs for my work.
I already understood this. It’s just that this question is periodically raised by fiber laser users. In most cases, 30 layers are enough for work. But, for example, I often need 40-60 layers. I understand that this may entail significant alterations in the software and they may not be economically justified. But what is really missing is the ability to change the colors of your palette to custom ones. This would be super. For example, this ability should be blocked for some controllers, and allowed for fiber lasers. But these are just my thoughts. I have been working with lasers since 2004 and this is the first time I have encountered this limitation. I do not have much experience with Chinese CO2 lasers, but I have never had such tasks. And I have a lot of experience with fiber engravers and from different companies, not only China. There is an option to customize the palette everywhere.
Do all of the hatching patterns uses the same laser power / speed settings, just with different fill angles?
If that is the case, I’d approach the problem differently: create an SVG design with separate vectors for each of the hatch patterns at whatever angle is appropriate. The entire SVG would use a single layer to set the correct power / speed, but the SVG design would control the laser path on the material.
Drawing those patterns by hand would be difficult (at least for me), but Inkscape has a Hatch Fill extension to fill closed shapes with regularly spaced lines, with extensive control over the details.
If the smallest 0.01 mm spacing suffices for your purposes, you could import an SVG vector image of the whole design on a single layer, select-and-fill subsets of the closed shapes at various angles, export a filled SVG to LightBurn, set up the laser speed-and-power values, then send the whole thing to the laser using a single layer.
The idea is good, but it is not a solution to the problem. Firstly, the files are large. I just created a file and started loading it into Lightburn and it just froze. I tried several times. So this is not an option ))) It is easier for me to use EZCAD. I just liked Lightburn because of its higher speed, smaller file size for saving (work is repeated) and 3D slicer. But it is also problematic (although one of the best): there is no rotation of the hatching of each layer. This leads to the appearance of artifacts
