Engraving Thicker lines

[Pete Cyr]

Post by Mike Halward » Wed May 17, 2017 9:09 am
Hi All
I am new here, but have used graphic software for many years , now trying to understand RDworks and having a slight problem..
I am trying to engrave a thick line say 4mm wide on wood - is there a way to specify line thickness
if I have the line drawing of a duck and want a engraved edge all around 4mm wide what is the best way
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Post by Gene Uselman » Wed May 17, 2017 9:37 am
You would do that in your graphics program- add a stroke [and convert to a wide line] or an outline, which you may be able to do in RDworks. Gene

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Post by sebastien laforet » Wed May 17, 2017 1:24 pm
Mike Halward wrote: ↑
Wed May 17, 2017 9:09 am
if I have the line drawing of a duck and want a engraved edge all around 4mm wide what is the best way depends of the software you use.

with inkscape, you select the path that draws your duck, choose the stroke&fill (ctrl+shift+F) and set the stroke width to 4mm.

re-select the shape, and use the menu "stroke to path" --> you now will have 2 paths. you can now use union/substract/intersect operations to just fill the outer zone.

be careful, since RDWorks does NOT understand the "fill" notion, so you have to duplicate the outer line : 1 line for cut (for example red) and 1 line for outer perimeter of engraving (for example black), and the last "inner" line set to black also for the inner perimeter of engraving zone.
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Post by Steve Taitinger » Wed Jun 21, 2017 3:17 pm

Mike, if you want to engrave a wider vector line created in Illustrator you need to set your desired stroke thickness, then select object, convert to outlines. Then in rdworks make sure it is on a scan layer and it will work fine. Note that rdworks totally neglects any fill when importing illustrator files. It just imports paths and if it is on a scan layer and the paths are closed it fills them. The preview can keep you from getting surprised too. I have had stroked lines on a scan layer that don't create any output which threw me off