Help converting a file

[leefieldservice]

Need help converting this to a cut file for a customer

thumbnail.jpg

[plasmanewbie]

Here is a good start but depending on how you want this done it will need some work. If doing 2 layer it will save you a lot of bridging. Hope it helps.

Staffordhdts.png

Staffordhdts.svg

Staffordhdts.dxf

[adbuch]

Need help converting this to a cut file for a customer

thumbnail.jpg

What software are you using, or learning to use? Have you made any attempt at tracing this image, either manually or auto trace? I expect that Plasmanewbie did an auto trace with CorelDraw. I tried it with Inkscape, but the result would need much editing. Are you planning to do this as a single piece, or multi-layered? If a single piece - would you be cutting it as a positive, or as a negative into a larger piece of material? All of this would come into play as far as your editing path to achieve your desired result. If you can show us your progress, and let us know the answers to some of these questions, then that would make it easier for us to try to help you to achieve your desired result.

David

[Joe Jones]

I took two hours and drew it symmetrically, but it still has the islands that must be corrected before it can be cut out of a single sheet of metal. I am going to crash now, but I may tackle the islands on another day soon.

Joe

SKULL LOGO WITH ISLANDS JPG.jpg

SKULL LOGO ISLANDS DXF.dxf

SKULL LOGO ISLANDS.pcm

[plasmanewbie]

Nice job Joe, super clean!

[Joe Jones]

Nice job Joe, super clean!

Thanks. I did not begin solving the islands issue. It can't be cut from a single sheet of metal now, because it will fall apart. Everything needs to be connected.

The original image provided by the OP was skewed and not vertical. It was rotated. So It was a bit of a challenge to draw one half of the image at an angle and then mirror it before rotating it to true vertical. It will take some time to solve the islands and still maintain the feel of the graphic.

I chose to remove the beveled corners of the thin white line. They look sloppy and I suspect they are the result of a bad scan. If they are intentional then they can be added back into the image.

I am leaving Albuquerque now for Dallas. So I don't have time to work on it further.

Joe

SKULL LOGO ISLANDS AND CHAMFER DXF.dxf

SKULL LOGO ISLANDS AND CHAMFER.pcm

[plasmanewbie]

Wow, what a road trip! I miss the road trippin days.

[Joe Jones]

I can’t do those thousand mile days anymore. I was able to get to Amarillo Texas where I checked into a nice hotel and grabbed a meal. I’m going to shoot for the Dallas area tomorrow.

Joe

[ROKCRLER]

Joe....awesome job on the file...im a visual person so i had to color it in to see what islands were left... here is what i came up with.
I joined the bottom wrenches to keep the crossbones as one piece.
This is a pretty cool design for multilayers for sure!
Im looking forward to cutting this.

[Joe Jones]

Joe....awesome job on the file...im a visual person so i had to color it in to see what islands were left... here is what i came up with.
I joined the bottom wrenches to keep the crossbones as one piece.
This is a pretty cool design for multilayers for sure!
Im looking forward to cutting this.

The file is still not ready to cut.

Joe

[ROKCRLER]

Joe...i know man... but it got the creative juices flowing.. thanks for the headstart man

[leefieldservice]

Joe thanks for all your help with this sorry for the delayed response this isn't something we use our plasma table for so I am a bit lost, customer has just requested that it be out of a single sheet it doesn't need to be exactly as the scan I would be more than happy to pay you for your time if you could complete it for a cut file.

[adbuch]

Here it the file with the islands bridged so you can get an idea how to do it. It's just drawing lines and trimming to get everything attached together for a single cut. Let us know if you have any specific questions. This was just "quick and dirty", so with a little bit more time spent it could be more symmetrical and such.
David

skull with wrenches dxf image.jpg

skull with wrenches.dxf

Here are some close-ups. The bridges between the teeth and the rest of the piece could be fattened up a bit to keep from burning thru when cut. Or maybe add a few more for good measure.

skull with wrenches dxf image upper half.jpg

skull with wrenches dxf image lower half.jpg

[tinspark]

Nice work David
The bridging hardly takes away from the original look.
laser cut may be a good option here.
Might be worth it to the OP to shoot some of your bridged images to a few local shops that offer laser cutting in the OP’s locale..
Ours here are fairly reasonable as long as I supply the materials and a dxf file. Of course they like to supply the material so that they can mark it up. But may be worth it because of the time and fuel to get the material there

[adbuch]

Thanks Doug! The "heavy lifting" had already been done, so simple enough to add some bridges - particularly using Design Edge. With any other program - Inkscape for example - the process would be far more tedious and time consuming. Depending on the material thickness and scale of the piece - it may be a candidate for cnc plasma cutting. But as you mention laser would work well also, with better definition and cleaner cuts.

My local cnc laser shop would probably charge in the $100 to $200 price range for a single part like this with dxf supplied to them. For larger quantities the price would come down. They charge for engineering time (convert dxf to cut file), setup time, and cut time (which would be minimal). It sounds like the OP's intention was to cut this himself. I will look forward to seeing how it comes out and hopefully he will post some photos of the finished part.

David

PS - this is the local shop I use for many of my parts. I have been working with them for over 20 years now.

https://themetalman.com/

metal man 0.jpg

metal man 1.jpg

[adbuch]

Doug - here is how I create bridges when I am in a hurry. Maybe it doesn't turn out as nice as drawing them individually, but much quicker to do - especially for "proof of concept". Design Edge makes this a breeze! If I were trying to accomplish the same thing using Inkscape or CorelDraw, I would be at it for hours instead of minutes. Another nice thing about Design Edge is that it uses the different colors to show solid closed paths, which makes it much easier to visualize to discern the "islands" from the larger closed path/material being cut.

David

bridge 1.jpg

bridge 2.jpg

bridge 3.jpg

bridge 4.jpg

bridge 5.jpg

bridge 6.jpg

[tinspark]

David, Love the tip about the small squares. I have been hitting the K button and breaking the line randomly by eyeballing it in the 4 spots then selecting and deleting the broken lines. Your way makes all of teh breaks more symmetrical.
I will try that next time,, You are a wise man my friend!!

[tinspark]

Thanks Doug! The "heavy lifting" had already been done, so simple enough to add some bridges - particularly using Design Edge. With any other program - Inkscape for example - the process would be far more tedious and time consuming. Depending on the material thickness and scale of the piece - it may be a candidate for cnc plasma cutting. But as you mention laser would work well also, with better definition and cleaner cuts.

My local cnc laser shop would probably charge in the $100 to $200 price range for a single part like this with dxf supplied to them. For larger quantities the price would come down. They charge for engineering time (convert dxf to cut file), setup time, and cut time (which would be minimal). It sounds like the OP's intention was to cut this himself. I will look forward to seeing how it comes out and hopefully he will post some photos of the finished part.

David

PS - this is the local shop I use for many of my parts. I have been working with them for over 20 years now.

https://themetalman.com/
metal man 0.jpgmetal man 1.jpg

+++++++++
I added a few more thumbs up just to be a trouble maker- I gotta boost my meaningless count ranking HAAHAHA!!

[adbuch]

David, Love the tip about the small squares. I have been hitting the K button and breaking the line randomly by eyeballing it in the 4 spots then selecting and deleting the broken lines. Your way makes all of teh breaks more symmetrical.
I will try that next time,, You are a wise man my friend!!

Doug - I had never even thought about using the Break "K" tool for this. I do use it when fitting text to path "Ctrl V" to break the circle or oval at the bottom or maybe to two sides (snap to quadrant).

David

text to path.jpg

[adbuch]

Doug - here is another method that could provide cleaner results and still be efficient if there are lots of bridges to make. I used the Bulge tool "Z" to create a small curved segment, then mirror/copy across a short vertical line. The result is 2 curved segments. Then group them together. After that make copies and rotate in increments of say 30 degrees, or maybe even 10 degrees for a closer match to the paths being bridged. Then just copy and past the group with the closest angle to the bridge locations and trim "X" away the excess. This could produce a cleaner look than the circles or squares.

Of course maybe just do the same thing with small squares. Create one, then copy/rotate every 10 degrees or so and use these for the bridging. I think you get my drift.

David

text to path 1.jpg

text to path 2.jpg

[adbuch]

Thanks Doug! The "heavy lifting" had already been done, so simple enough to add some bridges - particularly using Design Edge. With any other program - Inkscape for example - the process would be far more tedious and time consuming. Depending on the material thickness and scale of the piece - it may be a candidate for cnc plasma cutting. But as you mention laser would work well also, with better definition and cleaner cuts.

My local cnc laser shop would probably charge in the $100 to $200 price range for a single part like this with dxf supplied to them. For larger quantities the price would come down. They charge for engineering time (convert dxf to cut file), setup time, and cut time (which would be minimal). It sounds like the OP's intention was to cut this himself. I will look forward to seeing how it comes out and hopefully he will post some photos of the finished part.

David

PS - this is the local shop I use for many of my parts. I have been working with them for over 20 years now.

https://themetalman.com/
metal man 0.jpgmetal man 1.jpg

+++++++++
I added a few more thumbs up just to be a trouble maker- I gotta boost my meaningless count ranking HAAHAHA!!

emoji_thumbs-up_full.jpg

[tinspark]

Haha! Too funny
That’s just wrong…..

[tinspark]

David, Love the tip about the small squares. I have been hitting the K button and breaking the line randomly by eyeballing it in the 4 spots then selecting and deleting the broken lines. Your way makes all of teh breaks more symmetrical.
I will try that next time,, You are a wise man my friend!!

Doug - I had never even thought about using the Break "K" tool for this. I do use it when fitting text to path "Ctrl V" to break the circle or oval at the bottom or maybe to two sides (snap to quadrant).

David

text to path.jpg

I have been breaking a line one next to the other. Maybe 1/4” apart (or any given space). In your example if you add a dot next to the other dot and select between the two and hit the delete button, it will mimic more or less what I have been doing.
ie.. After I get a series of red dots along a given path or in a portion of a drawing, and before I delete anything, I will hold the “control” button down and select all of the spaces between the two red dots (1/4”apart or whatever I eyeball) and then I will move down the line where I want my next break to be, and do a couple of double ‘K’’s about 1/4” apart, then hit "delete" one time and, Shazam.. Done. Then move along to another area if needed.
But I think in your example and drawing above, you are just showing how you would break a line for the fit to path tool which is another awesome Design Edge feature that comes in super handy.
I do like your dragging and dropping shapes method to break lines too, then crop them out with the “X” tool..
A circle may actually be the handiest shape because it stays constant on any line or arch, angle, or degree..

[adbuch]

Doug - the method you describe about breaking paths, deleting the short segments between the breaks, and then manually drawing lines to connect the broken ends reminds me a lot of how most of the Inkscape users have to do it. They often add some nodes, then choose a handy one to "break the path at selected node", and proceed. It's ok for a few, but can become very tedious for many. I have often wondered why Inkscape does not add a "trim tool" to their tool box. Same for CorelDraw (a little bit better, but still no trim tool). Fusion 360 and VCarve Pro both have trim tools that work great.

David

[Joe Jones]

Here is the DXF file with the islands removed and the cut paths included.

Joe

SKULL LOGO W CUT PATHS.dxf