So, my machine is up and running. I’m playing with Easel now as a springboard (someday I’ll start into more complex CAD stuff, or whatever).
Questions!
Let’s say I wanted to cut out a shape, say, an egg. Just want a piece of wood cut in the oblong shape of an egg. So I go online, find a free clipart outline of an egg, bring it into Easel and vectorize it there. But then, Easel treats the black outline of the egg as the thing i want to cut out. So, if I choose to cut “outline,” and choose “Outside” the line to cut, it is actually going to cut out that black line surrounding the egg, not just outside the egg.
Or, say, I choose “fill” to carve the shape of the egg into a piece of wood. Well, it’s just going to cut the black line down 1/8" (or whatever), not the whole egg, because Easel is just treating the black outline of the egg as the object, not the whole thing.
However, if I draw a circle using the Easel program itself, it can cut outline, or fill, or cut inside or outside that line, no problem. The line of the circle created in Easel is not treated as an object, just a border.
Did any of this make sense? How do i get an imported object to be treated like a native Easel object? Do I have to do something in inkscape first or something?
Thanks in advance!
That is the vectorizing. You only get outline of the shape. It’s not only Easel. Even V-Carve pro does the same way. If you want to carve egg shape, you must find 3D shapes. Works with Ball head bits, (takes forever) but at least you can carve top half off the egg.
Converting a image to a vector is tricky. This feature is new in Easel so I have not had a chance to play with it.
I have been using inkscape “trace bitmap” to convert images to vectors and it is a multistep process.
In the case you are describing it sounds like the “Egg shape” is actual 2 vectors that have been combined. The outside edge of the line and the inside edge of the line. That is why you select “Fill” it only carves the space between the 2 combined curves. In this case it just happens to look just like single line.
Currently I do not know of any way to split combined curves in easel.
For now I would recommend using inckscape to trace your images.
After tracing be sure to Object: Ungroup and Path: Split apart. To insure that each curve is a separate element.
Play around with it and get a feel for how it works. Later once you get a handle on how a given graphic will trace you can do the sampler ones directly in easel.
@StevenPaxman
When I read your post, I thought I remembered the “Invert” checkbox, which switches from cutting inside the object to creating a cartoon TV outline around your shape, mostly filling the workspace, then cutting out everything between that and the shape. I seem to remember you can’t just toggle back and forth. I’m at work, so don’t have too much time to fiddle with it, but it was right at the beginning of opening an image or importing it. Hope that helps.
Chris
