Exporting graphics from Easel?

I’ve been trying to take some designs in Easel, export them to another application and work on them before reimporting to Easel. I see the copy function but I can’t seem to paste what is copied outside of another Easel project. I’ve tried right clicking on the graphic and Save As, but this results in a .png with no graphics or all black. Anyone have a suggestion?

Yeah, I just brought this up a week or so ago and someone from Inventables said it’s not available and probably wouldn’t be as it didn’t seem to be a common need.

Yeah it’s kind of a bummer. Especially since they don’t offer any way to locally store the projects either. So we just have to get used to our designs living on their servers and hoping they stay there forever, or only using Easel as preflight for the machine and doing most of the design work elsewhere.

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Yeah, backup was my big worry. I use Easel solely and have spent many many hours creating all of my projects that are stored only on Inventables’ servers.

I’m a developer with Inventables on Easel, maybe I can shed a bit of light on the issue.

First on the issue of backups: the database for Easel is hosted, managed, duplicated and the whole thing is backed up once a day (about 10 minutes ago in fact). So if the internet burns down (?) we will always have plenty of places to restore from.

Second issue is what format would be exported. Are you interested in taking your Easel design and bringing it into a another program? If so, what information would need to be preserved (there is no format that encodes everything in an easel design).

Last point is the advantages: by not dealing with downloaded files, we get to avoid the “which version of Easel” problem entirely. Easel iterates very quickly, we often push out multiple changes to the app every day. We can keep everyones files up-to-date which translates to more features for everyone.

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I just want to get a .JPEG or other graphic file. I like easel and some of the APS, bit once I’ve modified in easel, IE image trace, it’s hard to do other changes in easel, like erase or draw additional graphics. Would be great to just export the picture not the code.

Thanks for expounding on the backup practices for Easel projects. That does put my mind more at ease.

As far as complication in exporting I don’t have a clue about what you guys are seeing from the back-end and what would really go into this, but a simple vector file, SVG even, which would exclude depth of cut, and basically turn the project into an image.

For me it would even work if I could simply choose for the grid to be hidden. Then I could take a screen shot, convert the JPEG to an SVG and manipulate it in Graphic. When I do this right now I, of course, have all of the blue lines from the grid that I have to remove first.

@JosephCompton You do know that taking a screenshot doesn’t give you the editable vectors that you need to have a workable .svg right?

@paulkaplan I’m interested in both scenarios, being able to export an .svg would be ideal, however even if I could get a version that’s native to Easel it would be great as well.

My concern is that I’ve got about $1400 tied up in my X-Carve, and people who have bought Carvey’s or larger X-Carves have even more of an investment. The end users don’t really have any control over the business decisions of the company, and if something changes and Easel goes away, we all have to either buy and learn new software or admire our expensive paperweights.

I don’t plan on using my X-Carve only until Inventables makes a business decision not to support it anymore. I plan on using it for as long as the machine will last.

Yeah, I started with Easel (the X-Carve was my first introduction to the need for this type of file format and the need for a vector based program) so after a while I bought Graphic and began using it for creating projects and importing them into Easel. It’s a very basic editor but has been a good introduction to this type of design.

However, I had already created a bunch of the designs in Easel that I use everyday with my business and though I could re-create them in Graphic it would take a lot of time. Plus, my current program doesn’t have the capabilities of some of the really cool apps that are available in Easel like Inlay, Duplicator, Radial Array, and others which have been so handy.

@Mike I don’t just use the JPEG from the screen shot, but convert it to an SVG using an online converter. It does pretty well, but it is an extra step and there is room for error.

I’m not really sure what you are concerned about with Inventables “business decisions” I don’t quite follow you. For me and the types of things that I carve, pretty simple 2-D stuff, the X-Carve has been a great addition to my business.

@AngusMcleod @JosephCompton

Peugeot started out as a steel company. Then they started making coffee makers and bicycles. Then they started making munitions for war. Then they started making very good cars. Then they made very bad cars. Now they make ok cars.

My point is that nobody was dependent upon Peugeot’s continued existence as a coffee machine company when they decided to stop making them. Everyone’s coffee machine still worked exactly the same way whether Peugeot still made them or not.
But, if Inventables makes a decision to go down a direction of, say, 3D printers or Laser cutters, or decides to focus more on electronics rather than tools or software, where does that leave all the people who are dependent upon Easel for their workflow. We’d all have to buy and learn other software, or else our machines no longer function. Also, indeed all the projects we’ve created in Easel would be gone.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m just playing the Devil’s Advocate here. I’m not saying that I think Inventables will go ■■■■ up any time soon, or make a decision to abandon is user base or anything like that. I’m saying that we as end users don’t know or have any control over it one way or the other, and I’d rather have a way to hedge my bets. I’ve done what I can, I’ve learned a couple of different CAM methods, I do all my design work and save it locally to my computer and basically only upload finished .svg files to Easel for carving… but not everyone has those luxuries.

It also goes a long way in the spirit of Open Source that attracted me to the machine in the first place, to be able to maintain control of our files and our designs while also sharing them with everyone else.

Understood. I do appreciate that I can use my Mac with Easel.

If you are using an X-Carve or anything else as a key part of your business then you need to de-risk your whole process. If that includes the unlikely, but I concede, possible risk that Inventables and Easel are not there tomorrow then you need to stop using Easel and use something else. That is your choice and I don’t think it is Inventables responsibility.

Even so, Easel allows you export the gcode from your project so you can send it to your machine from any sender. Heck, you can even reimport it and send from Easel. The gcode has everything you need to rerun a job again and again. That’s good enough for me and I do reruns this way, no need to go through the design phase again.

Cheers

Ian

I see import gcode, how do you export?

Select Avanced under the Machine tab.

I recently figured this issue out. Open the workpiece in easel that you wish to upload to your computer. Click on Projects at the top. Choose Download project zip. This will download project to your computer. Once it is downloaded, just unzip the folder and you will soon be able to open up the svg file. I use inkscape. Once I open it in inkscape, I choose file, and choose Export to PNG. Hope this helps anyone that is looking how to export the graphic.

The above thread was from 2016 and in 2018 the export zip Feature was added.

I am glad they added the feature. I didn’t see the date, but that is ok. Much appreciated for the info.

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