Introduction to using Inkscape to produce cutting files

[MickRalph]

Following on from Mike's post, it is possible to use a diamond dresser in the penholder to do scribing, so that you can put the scriber in the machine and "cut" all the red lines (or indeed all lines) and then change to the blade and cut all the black lines,

 

I use a diamond dresser, which I use for an initial scribing of the plasticard, before using the cutting blade.  In this post I reported  that I have used it for scribing nickel silver for the parts to make a loco body, though I have to confess that I still haven't cut out the parts.  I got the idea from this post by MikeOxon when he built a wagon in brass

 

The second post of Jason's Silhouette thread has links to dicussions of using the diamond dresser, as Jason indicated in this post.  The first post by MikeOxon is here and he followed up here.  If you search for "diamond" in Jason's thread, you will get various posts regarding using these tools.

 

Edit: an alternative tool is produced by Amy Chomas in the USA.

 

Mick

Edited November 20, 2017 by MickRalph

[Stanley Melrose]

Hi,

 

I couldn't find a menu similar to the one in Mike's post in reply to my request for help but I did find this one (attached)

 

I selected the red option first, reduced the depth of the blade to about half what had cut through the 10 thou plastic card and set the printer to work.  When that finished I selected the black option re-extended the blade and set the printer to work once more.

 

The result?  As far as I can tell everything has been cut to the same depth.

 

I'd be grateful for any further comments or advice.

 

Cheers,

 

Stan

[MikeTrice]

Thats it. Sorry, I have an old version of the software so they have obviously made changes.

 

People typically extend the cutting blade too much. See the posts here and a few posts further on: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/79025-a-guide-to-using-the-silhouette-cameo-cutter/page-58&do=findComment&comment=2438559

[Stanley Melrose]

I must be the most dense person on this thread but I am finding it really difficult to get results.

 

First I tried with the blade and holder supplied with my Silhouette, setting the blade as Mike advised.  I can certainly scribe 10 thou plastic sheet but I cannot cut through it no matter how far I extend the blade, nor how many passes (up to 4!).  Being still enthusiastic, I swapped to the CB09 holder and blade, adjusted the cutting depth, again as Mike advised and scribed away happily but still I have been unable to cut right through 10 thou plastic sheet.  I appreciate that scribing can permit snapping but there isn't even a sign of the scribed lines on the back of the plastic sheet and I reckon the blade must by now be about 1mm extended.  In fact, when pushed into the plastic sheet, it goes right through and into the self-healing mat to the extent that I can't drag it in any direction - and still it won't cut so that the lines show on the reverse side.

 

Any thoughts?  The Silhouette is set for force 33 and 1 pass although I have tried 2, 3 and 4 passes.

 

Bewildered . . .

 

Stan

PS My initial attempts were largish files but I retreated to a simple rectangle in my attempt to get any results

[Siberian Snooper]

I must be the most dense person on this thread but I am finding it really difficult to get results.

 

First I tried with the blade and holder supplied with my Silhouette, setting the blade as Mike advised.  I can certainly scribe 10 thou plastic sheet but I cannot cut through it no matter how far I extend the blade, nor how many passes (up to 4!).  Being still enthusiastic, I swapped to the CB09 holder and blade, adjusted the cutting depth, again as Mike advised and scribed away happily but still I have been unable to cut right through 10 thou plastic sheet.  I appreciate that scribing can permit snapping but there isn't even a sign of the scribed lines on the back of the plastic sheet and I reckon the blade must by now be about 1mm extended.  In fact, when pushed into the plastic sheet, it goes right through and into the self-healing mat to the extent that I can't drag it in any direction - and still it won't cut so that the lines show on the reverse side.

 

 

 

Any thoughts?  The Silhouette is set for force 33 and 1 pass although I have tried 2, 3 and 4 passes.

 

Bewildered . . .

 

Stan

PS My initial attempts were largish files but I retreated to a simple rectangle in my attempt to get any results

What cutting speed are you using? Try a slower cutting speed.

What make of plastic card are you using? Some makes cut better than others.

[Stanley Melrose]

Cutting speed 1 and plastic card from EMA Supplies.

 

Stan

 

What cutting speed are you using? Try a slower cutting speed.
What make of plastic card are you using? Some makes cut better than others.

[Siberian Snooper]

Cutting speed 1 and plastic card from EMA Supplies.

 

Stan

 

I have not used their product, so I can't really help, but can I suggest trying Slaters Plasticard. I have tried Javis, this takes about 6 passes for 10 thou if it's shiny side up, but fails to cut the otherway, but will snap reasonably easy. Evergreen cuts OK.

[MikeTrice]

Stanley, you might be better off posting this in the Silhouette thread as this is not an Inkscape issue.

 

I assume you have done what I call the plunge test manually holding the blade. For a long time I underestimated the depth required and the plunge test allowed me to set far more accurately.

 

Having said that I too used to have problems cutting all the way through in 10 thou styrene and found it required around 4 passes. However a while ago I switched to the Silhouette Premium blade which has a 60 degree blade rather than the more common 45 degree and have never looked back. Using the Premium blade I can cut through 10 thou with just a double pass however the blade is now started to dull and it is no longer being so consistent. Time for me to replace it perhaps.

 

Where it has not always cut all the way through and has curved edges (making snapping out difficult) I find I can guide a scalpel along the cut and it is enough to break through.

[Stanley Melrose]

Well I said I might be the most dense contributor to this thread so now I offer real evidence.  I had set the line thickness of my prints at 0.100mm but having shifted that to 0.250mm (i.e. the thickness of the plastic sheet I was trying cut), I managed to cut most of the way through my EMA Supplies plastic sheet - well sufficient to flex them so I could extract the "cut" pieces.

 

Now for the real test - I am about to print complete sides of a 57ft long LMS coach.

 

Stan

 

Stanley, you might be better off posting this in the Silhouette thread as this is not an Inkscape issue.

 

I assume you have done what I call the plunge test manually holding the blade. For a long time I underestimated the depth required and the plunge test allowed me to set far more accurately.

 

Having said that I too used to have problems cutting all the way through in 10 thou styrene and found it required around 4 passes. However a while ago I switched to the Silhouette Premium blade which has a 60 degree blade rather than the more common 45 degree and have never looked back. Using the Premium blade I can cut through 10 thou with just a double pass however the blade is now started to dull and it is no longer being so consistent. Time for me to replace it perhaps.

 

Where it has not always cut all the way through and has curved edges (making snapping out difficult) I find I can guide a scalpel along the cut and it is enough to break through.

[MikeTrice]

Stan, by line thickness are you referring to the line drawn in Inkscape? If so I would not expect it to make any difference as only the point to point information is used for the plot.

Edited November 27, 2017 by MikeTrice

[JCL]

Hi Mike, hope you don't mind me interjecting here, I've just put something up on the Emblaser thread, and I think it's worth adding here.

 

TL;DR - There is a re-scaling and corruption issue for people who have created drawings in older versions of Inkscape and now have the latest version installed.

 

I've found that when I upgrade drawings from Inkscape 0.48 to the latest version, 0.92.2, some parts of the drawings become 'corrupted' and can't then be imported in their entirety into other software. You won't know this has happened while the drawing is in Inkscape, it will only be apparent when opening it elsewhere. In my case the other software is Vectric's Cut2D, I've not tried with the Silhouette Studio software, and I haven't looked to see if this is a problem with DXF files. This 'corruption' is a known problem for Inkscape. It's all to do with the published SVG standard and Inkscape's attempt to create files that are closer to this standard. It seems that their testing wasn't as thorough as it could be.

 

To get around this issue I've a friend with Adobe Illustrator who opens up the files and re-saves them. Unfortunately, this introduces a second problem in that the re-saved drawing is generally a different size to the original drawing. This can happen even if you choose the correct re-scaling option when first opening an older file in the new version of Inkscape. To get around this I select all parts in the original file to get the long dimension of the drawing, then do the same in the AI cleaned file and, with the link button pressed, paste the dimension into the correct box.

 

Sometimes by accident I just cut parts that are a little bit smaller than they should be. Looking at some now, I'm thinking they are close to TT scale.

 

The upshot is, if you are using the new version of Inkscape to open older files, check that the resulting drawing is the correct size and all the parts are there as you'd expect before starting your cutter.

 

Or stick with the older version of Inkscape.

Edited December 17, 2017 by JCL

[MickRalph]

Jason,

 

I discovered this issue when Inkscape v92 was introduced, when I tried cutting a drawing previously created in v48. It is, I think, due to a change in the resolution DPI in the new version - I did get a warning that the dpi was wrong, but whichever option I selected didn't cure the problem of the drawing being resized. My original post (in the Silhouette thread, and apparently not here)indicated that I have had to revert to v91 to be able to cut drawings created in v48 or v91.

 

Mick

 

ps the original post referred to above is at http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/79025-a-guide-to-using-the-silhouette-cameo-cutter/page-79&do=findComment&comment=2767167. None of the reply toolbar buttons seem to be working, so I can't add the link properly, not change the font.

[MikeTrice]

I have experienced a scaling issue when opeing earlier files in Inkscape 0.92. One obvious tell tale is you can no longer set the document base units from px, they reset back when you save.

 

I carried out quick experiment this morning and opened one of these problem drawings, made all layers visible and saved to pdf. On opening the PDF in Inkscape I had full control back of the drawing properties. The only downside is that all my layers have been compressed into one. On that basis I will probably take the time to upgrade problem drawings and re-establish the layers. Hopefully then they will export to dxf and get imported into Studio without rescaling issues, although rescaling it not too big a problem as long as you are aware of it.

 

I have certainly found later versions of Inkscape more reliable and their dxf export better.

[JCL]

Thanks Mick, Mike.

 

The rescaling is one thing, but beware of the corruption. I know most people are already aware of this, but, just in case you encounter issues, don't overwrite the original file when updating it to the latest version of Inkscape, give it a new file name.

Edited December 18, 2017 by JCL

[MikeTrice]

I have been carrying out some further experiments. They are a little on the verbose side so I will split them down into a few posts (so please bear with me short term).

 

My first action was to try and find an Inkscape file produced under an earlier version. I found my cutting files for the NER 6 wheel coach and copied into a temporary directory. More in a moment.

 

There has been talk of reinstalling earlier versions of Inkscape however I have found that resizing aside, the later versions have been more stable. I have not experienced the corruptions mentioned.

 

My preference therefore would be to try and stick with the latest release of Inkscape, however if you must run an earlier version then download and install a portable version rather than a full blown install. The portable versions can sit side-by-side with the currently installed version giving multiple choice of which version is run.

 

So my first task was to download the previous versions of Inkscape as a portable file. v0.48 can be downloaded from https://inkscape.org/en/release/0.48.5/platforms/

 

For v0.91 https://inkscape.org/da/release/0.91/windows/32-bit/portable-app/

 

After downloading this is what I have in my temporary directory, the original svg file (which I have renamed to reflect the 0.48 version and the two portable versions:

 

Select one of the PAF executables and run it:

 

Click on "Next" as required:

 

When prompted for an install directory note the default directory displayed:

 

To keep my sanity (well what is left) I added the version number to the end of the directory name:

 

Finish the install:

 

The process was repeated for version 0.91. These are the resulting files (note that "Posts" is another folder I created to draft these posts so would not apply to anyone trying to mirror what I am doing):

 

 

 

 

 

[MikeTrice]

To launch the Portable version of Inkscape 0.48 open the install directory and run InkscapePortable:

 

Clicking on Help -> About version 0.48.5 is displayed and the running version:

 

Opening the svg file reveals my starting point for the experiments. Selecting the outer rectangle displays its size as 274.944 x 170.631mm:

 

Opening document properties both default units and units are set to mm:

 

Save the resulting svg file. I now copied the 48 version of the file and renamed the copy it to reflect the 91 version:

 

InkscapePortable 91 was opened:

 

The selected rectangle is still showing as being 274.944 x 170.761mm:

 

I did have to reset the Units from px to mm in the document properties window and save the result:

 

After saving and reopening the 91 svg file the units have correctly been saved as required:

 

 

[MikeTrice]

A similar approach was taken to create a 92 version of the file so I started by copying the 91 file and renaming the copy:

 

As I did not need to run a portable version of Inkscape this time I just double clicked on the 92 svg file which launches to installed version of Inkscape. This time Inkscape tries to adjust units to cater for the change in dpi. After studying the options I chose those shown:

 

Opening Help--> About confirms I am now running v0.92:

 

Selecting the outer rectangle shows that it has all been upgraded to the correct size: 274.944 x 170.631mm:

 

Opening the Document Properties window shows that the Display Units have now been set to px. Try as you might it will NOT let you set these to mm and save the changes - it will just keep reverting back to px. With the upgrade from 91 to 92 I think it implements the dpi change by creating a wrapping viewbox redefine the original coordinates to the new coordinate system:

 

Time to apply my dodge and rectify the odd coordinate system. This time I save the Inkscape drawing as a pdf file with the following options:

 

THis results in a new pdf file appearing in my directory:

 

The new pdf is opening in Inkscape 0.92 with the following settings:

 

This is the result. Unfortunately the individual layers have been lost but otherwise everything looks ok:

 

Opening the document properties again reveals default units of px:

 

This time however when I change them to mm, save and reopen the svg file they stay as mm:

 

Note that the outer rectangle is still showing a size of 274.944 x 170.631mm so no rescaling has taken place so far:

 

Save the svg file then save as dxf with the following options:

 

I now have the following files:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[MikeTrice]

Nearly there. Open Silhouette Studio. I am still running v3:

 

Click on Edit--> Preferences:

 

Change the Import Options as shown:

 

Open the saved dxf file and note the size imported:

 

You will note that the imported size is fractionally smaller than shown in Inkscape. This is caused by the outer rectangle having a line thickness of 0.2mm which is included in the Inkscape overall size but not Silhouette Studio so pretty spot on and ready for cutting.

 

 

 

 

 

[Buhar]

Hi Mike, so it looks like the main issue is transferring older work is the loss of layers.  Could this be resolved by doing the .pdf dodge with each layer and then re-combining them in 0.92?

[MikeTrice]

An alternative is to simply change the line colours of each original layer (as I have done above) then on importing the resulting pdf, recreate the layers and select all lines of a specific colour and move them to the new layers. Probably less effort.

[MickRalph]

Thanks for this work Mike.

 

I found the resizing issue immediately after v92 had been issued - they have clearly altered the dialogue for importing a v91 file since I was trying it and they now have the option for defining the use intended for the drawing.

 

I don't think I ever had problems with the stability of v91, but I will now install v92 again and experiment over the next few days.

 

Mick

[MikeTrice]

I have found a second variation for updating to v0.92. Open the earlier file in 0.92 and let it go through the upgrade dialogue as detailed then same the svg file. At this stage as previously mentioned you wil not be able to change the Display Units which remain locked at px.

 

Now open a new 0.92 drawing instance in Inkscape and use the Import function to import the previously saved file. You will now have full control over the drawing units and everything exports and imports into Studio correctly. Unfortunately it will still end up combining layers into one but should bring in the full extents of the original drawing. If going down the pdf route large drawings can get clipped based on the document page size.

[MikeTrice]

Thanks for this work Mike.

 

I found the resizing issue immediately after v92 had been issued - they have clearly altered the dialogue for importing a v91 file since I was trying it and they now have the option for defining the use intended for the drawing.

 

I don't think I ever had problems with the stability of v91, but I will now install v92 again and experiment over the next few days.

 

Mick

You could just try the Portable version of 0.92 first to see if your issues are solved: https://inkscape.org/da/~GordCaswell/%E2%98%85inkscape-portable-092

[MikeTrice]

Well, I did not expect that!

 

Here is my source drawing. It is in version 0.92 so has the issue of a locked Display Unit setting and I really wanted to upgrade it gracefully to remove the issue as detailed above. Note the structure of the various layers which appear under a top level group layer:

 

So following my own advice I opened a new Inkscape v0.92 drawing which by default has a default layer "Layer1". My previous drawing was then imported in. Note that all the layers under "Cross Section" in the original have successfully imported under "Layer1 in the new drawing:

 

It would now be a very simple task to rename "Layer1" to "Cross Section". Curious.

[JCL]

Interesting. I was off-line yesterday (a couple of trees full of snow falling across a powerline will do that to you), so using the last of the battery on the laptop I dd a few experiments. It seems that we have been using the same method for making sure that it's easy to rescale back to the original size. I have the portable version of Inkscape on standby just in case I need it. I hadn't thought of importing an older file into a newer copy of Inkscape, I'll try that later.

 

Seeing this is an Inkscape thread, not a Silhouette one, I hope you don't mind me blathering on about Cut2D again. It's very possible that Cut2D for the Emblaser is very strict about what it can and can't import. This means that the corruption issue might be seen in that software and not in the Silhouette Studio software. I do know that Adobe Illustrator seems to be able to cope opening the file, and of course the new version of Inkscape doesn't have a problem either. If you're up for it, I'm happy to send you a file that I know has a problem to see if Studio can handle it.

 

I think I've found a trigger that creates a problem. I am using 1mm MDF to build models using tab and slot. This means that I draw the model fully first, then take bits out of it to create those tabs and slots. An example (GNR goods brake No.10) is shown below. I've noticed that the straight drawing is not causing me a problem, it's when I start using the Path -> Union and Path -> difference commands. The inner end on the right became corrupted and "disappeared" after putting in the tabs and taking out the other parts. I was still able to see the part in Inkscape, so I used the pen tool ans snap to redraw the side and deleted the original one. This new part was then imported into Cut2D without problem.

 

Again, probably not a problem for Silhouette Studio, but I thought I'd let you know. If I get to the bottom of it I'll put the findings up here.