Trying to make a simple sign?

[PWCNC_RICK (RICHARD D HAMILTON JR)]

Hello. in trying to make a simple sign I cannot figure out how to change the engraving function.

example. a simple square with text in it.
id preffer to engrave depth into the wood and leave the letters alone. hence when the laser is finished the lettrs wood be raised and not cut into the wood by the fill command.

ive drawn the extra geometry around the letters but it always fills the letters and doesn’t engrave around them.

im lost… I run a CNC machine and its a cake walk to create varying tool paths.
this I don’t get only options you get is line, fill and both fill+line.

HELP

WOULD I NEED TO CREATE A SOLID filled geometry like a solid black square and them do a difference command to cut out the letters then import into lightburn and it will them engrave around the letters.

IDK!!!

[Rick (Technical Evangelist)]

No need to yell, we are right here and willing help. Have a read over this:

How do I invert (negate) a vector engraving?

If you want to invert a vector engraving (Fill layer) you need to add an outline to it. Think about what happens when you scan a circle, compared to the letter ‘O’. The inner ring of the O toggles the fill. If you add another shape (like a square) outside it, it negates the whole thing: [image] And a slightly different example, this time done by changing the outer line around the design to a ‘Line’, instead of leaving it as part of the Fill layer: [image] In the case above, the design alr…

[PWCNC_RICK (RICHARD D HAMILTON JR)]

No yelling? sometimes Caps are just on. I already that, tried it as I stated in my post. I already drew geometry around the letters. a square. tried it via LIGHTBURN by drawing a square , didn’t work, and also I already had a square, geometry around it when it was designed in INKSCAPE. imported it as an svg. still didn’t work

I re-did the design in inkscape as a solid color filled square and then differenced commanded the letters out of this square, imported it into LIGHTBURN again as a svg, and this time it simulates and now cuts like I want???

can some one explain?

if I just have a solid LINE as the square it cuts the letters only and doesn’t engrave around them?

[LightBurn (Oz)]

The shape you draw around the letters would have to be the same color. If you can post a screen shot of what you see it will be easier for us to help.

In LightBurn if you’re using the LINE mode, it just runs the laser along the shape. If you’re using the FILL mode, it fills the shape defined by the borders you give it.

If you look at the link Rick shared above, you’ll see this image which illustrates it pretty well:

In the above image, if the square was drawn with a different color than the text, it would be a different layer with its own settings, and wouldn’t affect how the text was drawn.

In LightBurn (and quite a few other laser software applications) color is used to denote different toolpath operations.