I’m quite familiar with vector drawing in Illustrator, Vectornator, Affinity Designer, and some others. But I realize LightBurn is different in various ways. Just to make sure I have not missed something here are a few areas where I have found LightBurn to be different. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
LightBurn has no line weight. In most vector programs I can specify a line weight or stroke of 6 points, for example, to a line. In most of my drawings I have used some line width to make lines more visible. So I have been experimenting with offset lines close together to simulate a wider line. I guess the next thing too try is to use the offset line Ans use it together with the original line to create a closed shape that, when filled with black, will look like a wider line.
LightBurn closed shapes have no fill. It’s either burn or not burn. But one shape laying on top of another shape does not conceal any part of the lower shape.
I have attempted to attach a jpeg photo of a feather I drew that illustrates the point. The red line is the object of contention. LightBurn objects to the unclosed shape. So I edited the file to close the gap, but the quill, which is on the upper layer, has no white fill, and does not conceal the closing segment, and that ruins the drawing. Unless there is some way to get LightBurn to ignore that segment I have not as yet discovered. When I burn this drawing as a jpeg everything is fine. When I’m done LightBurn asks if I want to save this project as I did. Then when I went to try it again LightBurn would not burn the feather outline because it is not a closed shape. Then I realized that when LightBurn saved my jpeg drawing it was converted to vector and that was not a usable file. So I went back to the jpeg.
In the example of my feather drawing there is no union or Boolean joining that can combine one shape onto another without losing some part of the lines. For instance there is no Boolean method that can cover up the offending line segment where the quill passes over the feather outline. So in this case my only option is to use a jpeg file for this project. I tried every combination I could figure out and none of them solved this problem. I tried the new scissors tool that can remove a line segment but that leaves the feather outline as an unclosed object and it will not burn.
Thanking you in advance for your help and guidance.
Are you able to attach a vector version of your file to have a play with? You might need to add a “.TXT” extension to the file name to get around the forum restrictions.
That’s correct. In Lightburn there is cutting or engraving, it is related to the fact that there is only one particular wide of your tool (laser). To fill an area/shape, just many of your laser beam thicknesses with the same “line thickness” are used.
IMO the single largest difference is fundamental: LightBurn is not a vector drawing program.
It is a program intended to control a laser machine.
Because a focused laser beam has no width, a “vector” in LightBurn has no width, no line weight, no fill.
LightBurn does have filled shapes, but those shapes must have an interior distinct from the rest of the design: all filled shapes must be closed. The fill has specific properties related to raster-scanning the interior that depend on how a laser beam interacts with the material.
Because the vectors and shapes define the laser paths, overlapping shapes will direct the laser over the same spot.
Put simply, you cannot use LightBurn as a drawing program, because that’s not what it does. You must draw the image elsewhere, then import the finished product into LightBurn to define how the laser will burn it into the material.
It will “engrave” a picture / image by raster-scanning its bounding box and burning the dark areas, but that’s pretty much the extent of its image handling.
Maybe if I told you how I’m using this feather image it might give you some other ideas that would be useful to me. I use my iPad to go online and interact with this forum. I draw on the iPad with the Apple Pencil mostly in Affinity Designer. I export both jpeg and SVG files so I will have options to work with. Then I copy the files to an SD card. And carry it downstairs to my Laser workstation and load it into a windows laptop. I’m not the least bit familiar with using a windows computer but that’s what I can use in my workshop. My iMac stays upstairs. The feather was burned onto a wooden Native American style flute made of Eastern Red Cedar. Making flutes is my primary woodworking activity. The laser burning is part of that. I use the laser to burn my logo and the key & serial number of the flute on the back. I always use the “current position” method of positioning the laser to burn on my flutes. Sometimes I burn decorative things on my flutes. In this case the flute is bird-
themed and the bird happens to be a Cardinal. The totem of the flute features a carved and painted Cardinal head. At the bottom end of the flute I burned the feather, 110mm long. Then I painted the feather red to support the red of the Cardinal totem. Naturally a flute is a cylindrical object and the laser expects to burn on a flat plane but I have found that the laser works perfectly well burning on a curved surface considering that my drawings are seldom wider than 22mm. The diameter is 35mm. I realize if I try to go wider my drawing starts to get stretched out of shape and the focus would start to be a problem. I have recently bought a Creality Rotary Roller, the chuck type, so I can do this properly, but it turns out it isn’t compatible with my 5.5W 3018 Pro machine, which is why I just ordered a 10W Creality machine. But it isn’t here yet. Just eyeballing it it looks to me that the curvature causes a difference in focus distance of about 3mm but I have never noticed the slightest problem with the image being sharp.
Your definition of a vector drawing program seems to be tied to having a stroke width.
I consider LB a vector drawing program. No different than CAD, which can have stroke width for viewing, but generally outputs a zero line width. Most programs like CorelDraw, Affinity Designer, Illustrator, Inkscape, Silhouette Studio can create a vector stroke width. But, if you are creating vector cut or vector score lines for a laser, you wouldn’ “outline” the stroke in their respective programs. CorelDraw has a special linewidth called “hairline”, which is what you use for both vector cutting and scoring. When output to a Epilog, Trotec, or Universal Laser Systems, it interprets “hairline” as zero width. When I use Illustrator for my laser, I use a stroke width of 0.001". The controller software interprets that width as vector lines. One nice thing about using a program like CorelDraw or Illustrator and the lasers I mentioned. I can draw a black stroke width, and I do not have to “outline” the stroke" before sending to my laser. The software interprets it as a raster “fill”.
My laser has a beam width of 0.006" for most items. When I worked for a steel rule die manufacturer, our beam width was 0.028" or 0.042", cutting mostly 5/8" or 3/4" maple.
I took your feather drawing, and removed the red line in Photoshop. Then I imported it into LB, and used the “Trace Image” command. I removed the JPG, and scaled it to about 22mm height. That seemed to work. Feather.lbrn2 (58.9 KB)
Ralph, it is “only” a different way of thinking and constructing/designing but leads to the same goal. (- Omnes viae Romam du c unt - But I don’t have to drive all the way down to Palermo to get to Rome when I’m in Florence. )
I did the same with the feather as you did, just without leaving LB.
I think it depends on your background, whether you have always worked with the heavy design/drawing programs or come straight from “simple” CAD/CAM programs.
What is really missing in LightBurn is center tracing, everything else I have found other ways to solve the tasks.
The system does not allow writing some normal words in Latin…a bit embarrassing I think
It is a very beautiful product you make.
As I wrote to Ralph, I see no limitations in your workflow. I just import the drawings themselves directly into LB, without detours.
You have achieved to engrave precisely on round objects, looks fine and not distorted. Exciting what you can achieve with your rotation device.
Thanks, yes I understand what you want the result to look like. I wanted your original vector file to work with so that I could try to come up with an all vector workflow (i.e. without converting to raster). I’m able to open Affinity files if that’s what you’re designing in, otherwise just about any other vector format is fine.
If you open your vector file in Affinity Designer, select both of the curves then perform an “Expand Stroke” followed by a “Weld” you should get what you want.
See attached Affinity Designer file. Note that I’ve saved the history with this file so you can see exactly what I did. When you download the file you’ll need to remove the “.txt” extension.
I found it somewhat difficult using Lightburn at first when coming from a vector drawing application, Inkscape in my case. The explanations here are all very helpful but it does require some different thinking to understand what happens, especially cases where you might get over burning because of layers. LB doesn’t sell itself as a vector drawing program but it does have good vector features but with a different set of rules. Basically it doesn’t do “hidden line removal” which would prevent over burning. It isn’t much different than CNC. The only difference is that with CNC the tool width decides how wide a “line” is regardless of what the vector width might be. I use Carveco and imported vectors have zero width. I fell foul of this when I first set line widths in Inkscape. The dimensions that I got on import weren’t quite correct because Inkscape sets the dimension to the outside of the line but Carveco takes the center. Now I make all of my vectors 0.1 pixels so that I can see them, and the difference in Carveco is negligible compared to the accuracy of the CNC machine. LB is essentially the same but with a fixed line width defined by the laser.
I think that Light works not working the same as a vector drawing app is precisely the point of frustration I have had as well. I realized that the effect on the laser drives the thinking of Lightburn, but a lot of users with vector drawing experience are using lasers and find the software is crippled when trying to do simple tasks that would otherwise drive us to go back to the originating software to edit. Remember when Windows or Mac operating systems came out? Anyone who had software that didn’t conform to the norms of mouse picks, etc was deemed not Windows like in action and became frustrating to users. Any software that requires you to relearn habits becomes more challenging to use. Perhaps if a vector drawing person had been part of the Lightburn design team from the start things would have been different but it’s a bit too late for that.
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