Hey All,
I have this bade that will be engraved (blue) but I would like to be able to Cut (red) around the outside of the whole object. The issue is that because all of the little fins are detached, when I cut, I end up with a hundred little pieces. Any thoughts?
Did a quick look and came up with this.
Select the outer group. Apply an offset, this will give you an outline. Increasing the ‘offset’ will help smooth out the outline.
You will have to ungroup the resulting object so you can delete the inner ‘offset’
Make sense? Hope this is what you were after.
An alternative to Jack’s proposal is as in:
Figure 1 is made with the rubber band line feature,
Figure 2 is made as No. 1 and afterwards with the help of T2-as guideline, manually adjusted.
Very cool!!! How did you mark the center of the shield in order to draw the T2 out?
Awesome. Going to try and duplicate it now!!! Thx.
This is PERFECT!
@bernd.dk I can get to the left image fine. The right one eludes me. Can you give me a clue?
Thanks
@Firstdegreeburnz Which ‘shape’ were you after? Just curious…
Looks like he created a circle the circumference of the second longest spikes then drew a line down the middle of the shortest to the opposite. Followed by the circle array.
Just a guess.
First, I use the line tool to make guides (T1), from the endpoints of the shortest rays.
Unfortunately, the sign is not completely symmetrical therefore an automatic circular array becomes too inaccurate, so I duplicate the first line and rotate it to the next section, 6 times in total. It’s going pretty fast anyway.
Then I draw a circle, open the aspect ratio and adjust the circle so that it becomes a little oval, like the sign itself.
From the oval circle I make an offset (black line) and draw the “sections” manually, along the T1 lines down to the T1 circle.
It’s not the fastest way to do it but just another option.
Note, for better visibility I have changed the blue layer from fill to line.
The entire circle part can advantageously be switched to “rubber band” function, ie just pull a “rubber band” around the whole and then an offset of it.
I had hoped to obtain the results you came up with. That was perfect! The steps bernd.dk took were very interesting and will help with other projects down the road. Many thanks to everyone involved!!!
Thanks for the explanation. Doubt I’d have come up with that…
It’s always nice to ‘know’ what you were looking for…
Take care, have fun…
P.S. you can enter the @ sign and it will give you options of whom you’re referencing
Such as @Firstdegreeburnz 
I look at these and try to do the steps in my head. Always trying to learn. Nice job.
Thanks, but this is just one of several useful solutions. I like working with LightBurn. 
