why do i get straight lines appearing in long curves?

[Robert Lambie]

it maybe the file type, i normaly export to plt type files.
in the past when doing an engraving i had letters with curves that looked like the shape of a 50p peice. i changed to plt and it worked. not saying this is “your” problem, but ide eliminate that first before calling 😀

[steve geary]

I recently heard about this….
A friend of mine drew a Guitar template in corel, then exported to dxf for cutting on a milling machine.
he was told by the shop, that unless it was created in auto cad, that you will get these noticable lines, that when you export to dxf it adds suare nodes to the curve.
We experimented by importing dxf into my cutting software (flexi) and if you zoom in real close, you see the nodes, but it cut nice and curved for me.

So, my advice would be try experimenting with exporting to different file types, as rob suggested. that seemed to work for me.
Try some different file types and se if you can veiw the corners before routing.

Don’t know if that’s any help….
good luck

steve

[Ryan]

cheers rob, does that mean i need to use signlab, not seen .plt ext on illustrator, is this a type of plotter file type? its a bit strange really as it only seems to happen on larger objects we are cutting, smaller curves cut okay.

[Ryan]

Thanks Steve, yeh experimenting in the sign trade is the best way to learn!

Its only become an issue recently because we went for a 3×2 bed so we’re fielding some enquiries for bigger router jobs of late. It might be wise to invest in better software anyway because we’d like to try out 3d modelling in the future but crickey if we cant get 2d right its not looking too good for 3d!

Thanks again mate will try out both suggestions and let you know.

[Robert Lambie]

ryan im using signlab yeh, but im exporting to toolpath from AXYZ i dont think thats an expensive program but now sure what machines if not only AXYZ ones it will operate.

[David Rowland]

Just did a search, https://www.uksignboards.com/viewtopic.p … ator#71147

Andrew has a plugin that he uses to output Illustrator to Router DXF, maybe if Andrew is about he might give a clue what the plugin is called but I know Corel Draw > AI / DXF > Art Path (GA 6.2) can cause multiple lines.

[Tony Mac]

Hi everyone,

If ever you need to vectorise / trace vectors around an image or graphic, try using the Free program Inkscape,

You can download the installation program from,

http://www.inkscape.org

You have the option to download the zip file or the install .exe (I used the .exe)

Inkscape opens virtually all image file formats and the Tracing option is found under,

Path > Trace Bitmap – or Shift + Alt + B

I needed to convert some Dover Clipart designs for cnc machining and simply went with the default settings. The results were very good (see below), and I would say better than I have been getting from Corel Trace.

There is a Tutorial that explains how to use the advanced options and settings when Tracing (see Help > Tutorials > Inkscape: Tracing)

Use File > Save As and select the EPS option

The image on the left is the original tif image (although it was saved as an eps without any vectors) and the machined results on the right.

Hope you find this useful,

Tony Mac
(mod-edit) NO advertising admin@uksignboards.com

[John Singh]

Hey that’s pretty cool Tony
Thanks for the link

That’s a real clean vector trace