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Software for the Laser Cutting Machine
Fri, 12/30/2011 - 09:56 — AliciasBusyMind
Is Corel Draw the only software used for the laser Cutting Machine?
Who's online
There are currently 2 users and 18 guests online.
Online users
- katyb
- btaylor5
In principle, any software
In principle, any software that can print can drive the laser cutter.
What I do is design in Inkscape on my own (Linux) machine, export to PDF, and use Acrobat Reader on the machine attached to the laser to print the PDF.
Thanks
Thank you Mikem this is what I needed. I use Inkscape.
Another idea
I am very new to using the laser cutter, but I have found that exporting from from Inkscape as .eps and bringing that file in to Corel gives me the best flexibility. Some of the files that I saved as .svg in Inkscape did not when moved in to Corel, a number of the end points look randomly moved. When I open the file into as .eps Corel it asks "do you want to import this file as text or curves?" I select curves and then have a fully editable vector file in Corel to work with in case I have to make any minor changes. If you the file is a PDF you can't really edit it.
Good luck!
-Phil
svg from Inkscape
The problem is that you need to save in "Plain SVG" and not "Inkscape SVG".
Tried that....
I tried saving them as "SVG" and ended up with the same result....that is when I then tried using .eps. I don't know if there is something in the file, but since I brought them in to Corel I have saved them from Corel as .svg and those seem to move between InkScape and Corel now just fine.
No, the problem is that Corel
No, the problem is that Corel Draw does not actually support SVG. I have tried loading SVG files with Corel Draw that I wrote by hand, and it does incorrect things with them. There are multiple places where support of SVG features is missing or silently broken. I can find specific examples again, but it was bad enough that I stopped taking notes on how broken it was and just went with the Inkscape -> pdf -> Acrobat Reader route.
Also, not everything seems to talk well with the laser printer driver. In particular, Inkscape doesn't work. Hence the pdf step. Anything involving an SVG file is a little bit tricky, since there's no "hairline" width option, but sufficiently thin lines will cut as vectors. I use 0.0001"; the exact cutoff point is dependent on your raster resolution setting.
Inkscape ->DXF -> Corel Draw
I have had good luck with exporting a dxf from Inkscape and then importing it into Corel Draw. I have also had success with dxf's from www.thingiverse.com.