inkscape .DXF files for the laser

[gazz]

After some advise about the best way to get something i drew in inkscape to newlydraw, 

last time i used the laser, i had saved my vector drawing as a .DXF file, but when i imported it into newlydraw, half of the parts were missing, 

i tried splitting the drawing in newlydraw and trying to highlight things, but the parts that were not showing just had not been imported, 

i tried re-importing but got the same result, 

So i assume it's something i am doing wrong when saving in inkscape?

I re-sized the page to the drawing size in inkscape, then saved as a .DXF file, i only had a couple of options on saving:

'use ROBO-Master type of spline output'   not selected,

'use LWPOLYLINE type of output'  selected as standard, could that be the cause? as it mentions to de-select it to use a legacy version of LINE output.

'Base unit'  i set to mm.

'Character Encoding'  Latin 1.

wondering about the character encoding thing, as i am using a custom font (Blippo) which the laser cutter laptop may not have, could this be the problem? 

Last time i re-saved it as a .jpg, etched it from that and manually added the cut lines in newlydraw, which isnt fun if the lines are anything other than box of circle, 

This time i want to etch on both sides, so need registration marks to line things up etc (pointers on the best way to do those welcome, atm i have just added 4 dots that the laser will cut, when i flip the sheet over i will position the sheet and jog the laser until it fires in the existing dots (as the visible laser marker is usually way off the actual laser firing point... saw one laser online that had a visible laser that shone through the mirrors the cutting laser uses, so was always spot on) 

Also, is it possible to access another computer from the lasers laptop to drag a file across? i had a quick try, but it looks like only registered computers on the hackspace lan are accessible, so not my laptop logged into the member wifi.

i used a usb key to transfer, but there were no free usb ports on the lasers laptop (one at the back didn't seem to work) so i had to unplug the mouse to get a free usb port.

[James Hayward]

Gas

Every object needs to be a path before you save as a dxf.  So all text, rounded rectangles, etc need converting. You do this in the path menu (convert object to path)

I always miss one and have to go back and re save!

J

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[Gazz]

Ahhhh, so that's what the 'objects to path' command is for, something has
just gone 'clonk' inside my head,

Cheers,


--------------------------------------------------
From: "James Hayward" <jhaywa...@gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, March 3, 2014 5:41 PM
To: <notti...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [Nottinghack] inkscape .DXF files for the laser

>> nottinghack...@googlegroups.com<javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','nottinghack%2Bunsu...@googlegroups.com');>
>> .

[chris cain]

Don't know anything about Inkscape + dxf but can suggest using dropbox www.dropbox.com to move stuff from your laptop to the laser laptop

worked for a bunch of DXF drawings I had, a basic account is free and gets you 2GB of space, which is a LOT of DXF's !!

Chris

[Matt Lloyd]

you should also be able to put files on the jarvis network files server 

IIRC mouse put instructions on the wiki for accesing it from personal machines as well as the laser laptop

'RepRap' Matt