Creating single cutting path from line drawing

OK. Another dumb newbie question. Bear with me folks, I’m getting there … :grinning:

I have a line drawing of a shape that I want to cut out. Is there any way to create a single cutting path down the centre of the lines ? No matter how I try and do this, it always wants to create two cutting paths at either edge of the line. The file is currently an SVG but could be in any format. The tool I am wanting to cut it with is 1/8". It doesn’t matter to me how thick the actual drawing lines are. I just want to create a single 1/8" wide cut either down the centre or the outside of the lines that make the shape.

Thanks

You can cut inside the line, outside of the line or on the line. You can’t cut between 2 lines. Hope that helps.

Look at the nodes. Usually you can delete one line. I have had success doing this before

I believe what is trying to be said here is that whatever drawing you have has two lines besides each other. this is common thing to happen when converting raster images to vector. you need to delete one of the lines to make a single vector and then you can choose to cut on, inside, or outside of that one line.

The other thing I’ve noticed is that sometimes to create a lie/border, you have a shape on top of a shape. If you go to Edit -> Combine, it should consolidate to one shape and hopefully give you what you need.

OK. Thanks all. That’s given me a few things to try. I’ll let you know how I get on.

Hmmm. I kinda see that - I think … So how about if the drawing was created in a vector drawing package like Inkscape in the first place, rather than being an SVG created from some other (raster) format ? I have imported a couple of other images, and they have produced a single inside / on path / outside cutting line. But I’m not sure quite how I did it. Hmmm. I’ve just had a look at the archived images that I used, and they are PNGs. Does Easel accept PNGs ? Is that why those were ok ?

OK. Progress. Based on Philip L’s suggestion above, I invoked the node editor and deleted all the nodes of one line. That seems to have produced exactly what I need based on how it looks in the creation pane, and on the workpiece animation pane. I’m just waiting for some new cutters to arrive that should be here in the next day or so, so I’ll give it a go as soon as they are here.

Again, thanks for all the useful suggestions and comments. Much appreciated. :grinning:

a picture is worth a thousand words

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What would you like a picture of ? Nothing much to see, really. I’m a total newbie to CNC control, so everything is a bit of an experiment at the moment. I’m at the point of cutting out fairly simple and small shapes. I created a line drawing of a toy train in mspaint and then converted the file to SVG. I imported it to Easel and asked it to prepare an outline cutting scheme. It produced two cut lines side by side. Clearly, I only needed one, so I asked here how to do that. Of the several responses, the simplest one seemed to be using the node editor to remove one. I did. It worked. So now I have an outline drawing of a small toy train, with a single cut path.

I have actually cut one out using an inappropriate tool, but good enough to check that all was as expected. And it was. I suppose I could put up a picture of the drawing in Easel with the single cut path shown, but I don’t think it would actually show anything that anybody on here with more than two weeks’ experience of Easel wouldn’t have already seen for themselves a hundred times over ??

just saying it is easier and clearer to post an image or easel link. Something we can see, rather than a block of text, which I’m usually too lazy to read. :sweat_smile:

But you seem to have figured it out, so good on you.

OK. I could do that. I have a bunch of snip images now of me doing the same on a little coach to go with my train (mainly to remind me how to do it in the future). Would posting those be of any use ? If so, how do I post pictures here with a little caption to each ? Is there a limit to how many images I could post here ? I think it is about eight or nine of the whole process. They are PNGs, biggest is 221kB