It’s been a while since I’ve been on my machine and I’m brain dead. I’m trying to make some small picture frames about 4"x4" for some kid’s crafts that are flower related. Wanting to create a simple frame with flowers around it engraved and part cut as part of the inner frame. Unable to weld, boolean, etc. I tested the boolean assist with a couple individual images and it worked flawlessly. Tried only selecting a single flower and a single section of the inner frame and it won’t do anything. Tried closing paths, closing with tolerance, selecting open images, etc etc. How do I connect JUST the inner path to cut the opening with the flowers as part of the cut?
close the path, ungroup everything, then create a cutting layer and an engraving layer, select all the vectors to be cut
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The key gotcha: a single node can join only two paths.
The nodes where the end of the inner frame lines meet the flowers cannot join them, because that would require three lines at each node:
If you think of each path as “the laser will follow the line”, then any node with three lines presents a problem: which line should the laser follow when it arrives at the node?
To set up the inner frame path around both flowers:
- Ungroup the inner & outer frame lines if they’re grouped
- Ungroup the flowers
Node Editthe flower’s outer path to break it where the inner frame meets it- Join the inner frame lines to the trimmed path
- Put the inner frame on a
cutlayer
To set up each flower for engraving:
- Put the rest of the flower’s outer path on the
engravinglayer - Put the inner parts of the flower on the
engravinglayer
I’ve surely omitted a step in there, but the general idea is to convert the outline from a drawing to a set of closed paths the laser can follow.
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I have found the Trim Shapes (scissors) Tool to be incredibly fast for doing this kind of work.
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As the man said, “It’s a time for every style.” 
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