Im having issues using Break Apart in lightburn, ive been trying to pull a offset circle apart into segments ive drawn in lightburn. My plan is to cut paua shell into segments from this circle and use it for inlay. My laser only has a 30cm x 18cm working are so i cant cut a whole circle from a paua sheet. I can manage to break it apart but i wont let me take it down to just one segment. would really appreciate some help on this one. Been trying to get it to work for weeks. the pic shows the part i want but i cant break that piece away. it will only let me do 2 pieces together.
I’m not sure what you mean exactly, but perhaps this will help: ‘Break Apart’ only breaks things into the original component parts used to make the shape. A circle is usually 4 bezier arcs, so using ‘Break Apart’ on a circle would give you those 4 arcs. If you tried to break one of the resulting arcs, it wouldn’t do anything, because it’s already just one curve between two points:
If you’re trying to cut one of those into smaller parts, you’ll need to use Edit Nodes, Trim, the boolean tools, or Cut Shapes. By editing the nodes, I can cut it anywhere I want:
Hi.
Thanks for the quick reply. I dont think you fully understand what im trying to achieve. The circle ive drawn has a 5 mm offset. That will allow me to cut thin strips from a sheet of paua shell. Its not a single line circle. I dont have a problem breaking it into quarters but when i try to break it down smaller it wont let me do it. In the photos ive attached the paper cuts are of one i got to work but uts too small. The other photo shows the correct size piece highlighted but u cant break that away from the piece on the left.
There are only 4 points, and 4 curves, shown here in different colors:
Since the green curve and the orange curve are each just one single curve, there’s nothing to ‘break’. You can insert new points, and THEN break, or use the boolean, trim, or cutting tools as I said before. For example, for booleans, I can do this:
Draw a rectangle around the part to discard:
Select the arc, then Shift + Select the rectangle, and click ‘Boolean Difference’ to subtract the rectangle from the arc:
i know im a pain but is there any chance you could do a short video of that please. i cant get it to happen. the only thing it will break away are the ends ive drawn in.
I’m not using ‘Break Apart’ at all - I’m using the boolean tools. If your shape is a closed loop (which it was before you used ‘Break Apart’) you can use the boolean tools to cut it up. You will likely have to reconnect it all using ‘Auto Join’, or just re-make the original pair of circles and do it like this:
Draw a pair of circles inside each other, then draw a perfect square that starts from the center of the circle (hold the Shift key to make it a perfect square while you drag it to size):
Select both circles and group them (Ctrl + G). Select the square, then right-click and choose ‘Convert to Path’:
Click the ‘Edit Nodes’ button (just under the hexagon in the left tool bar). Hover the mouse over the the lower-right corner of the square and press D to delete that corner:
Now, select the group of two circles + the triangle, and click ‘Boolean Intersection’, like this:
It will keep the parts that overlap, leaving you with this:
