I guess I'm in my own little world. Or maybe it's a laser engraver person thing.

[Clark Pace]

So,

I do this part time as a side job. And one of the people at my office is a 3D graphics guy. Anyways I was explaining what kind of format he could export to that would be compatible with my laser.

I told him I use corel draw? And he said huh?? what is that? Now I'm thinking to myself. Really? You have never heard of corel draw? I've used Corel since 1997.

I thought it was kind of interesting. Made me laugh a bit.

[Bert Kemp]

yea I know people who lived in an area all there lives and don't know whats 2 miles down the road either. Kinda the same thing I guess. People use one thing and like it an never bother to look and see what else is out there.

[Art Mann]

Corel may be popular with laser engravers but it isn't used very much by graphics designers. Adobe Illustrator has about a 95% market share. My wife owned a design business for many years and also worked as a designer for a large commercial printing company. She is only vaguely familiar with it. As far as 3-D graphics goes, Corel doesn't support it at all. For general 3-D modeling, I believe the most popular product may be Rhino.

We are thinking about going to Corel Draw for use with our CNC router designs because Adobe has moved entirely to a software rental business model and we find that unacceptable.

[Joe Pelonio]

Most graphics people I work with use illustrator but at least have heard of Corel, even those using 3D. Most of them are using Solidworks, and most haven't a clue how to save it to a format I can use, I have to usually do it myself on their laptop.

[Weston Porter]

Corel may be popular with laser engravers but it isn't used very much by graphics designers. Adobe Illustrator has about a 95% market share. My wife owned a design business for many years and also worked as a designer for a large commercial printing company. She is only vaguely familiar with it. As far as 3-D graphics goes, Corel doesn't support it at all. For general 3-D modeling, I believe the most popular product may be Rhino.We are thinking about going to Corel Draw for use with our CNC router designs because Adobe has moved entirely to a software rental business model and we find that unacceptable.

I can back this up as well, as a graphic designer working primarily in digital fabrication all I use is Adobe Illustrator and Rhino 3D. I've heard of Corel of course but I've never seen a reason to make the switch. Rhino is able to import and export AI files directly, I don't think Corel has that level of integration and one less step is a huge step.

[Art Mann]

I use Vectric's Vcarve Pro for generating CNC Router tool paths. It seems to be the dominant 2.5-D software in the industry. It imports Illustrator files directly. I think Corel will save vector based .EPS files which Vcarve will import. Vcarve will not directly import native Corel files, as far as I know.

[Art Mann]

I am sort of curious as to what type of 3-D graphics files would be useful for laser engraving. If what the OP wants is a 2-D graphic representation of a 3-D object, then the best method might be to print the 3-D image to a .PDF file and import that into Corel.

[Doug Griffith]

I am sort of curious as to what type of 3-D graphics files would be useful for laser engraving. If what the OP wants is a 2-D graphic representation of a 3-D object, then the best method might be to print the 3-D image to a .PDF file and import that into Corel.

I would generate a 2D layout in my CAD program and then export as a .DXF or .AI.

Another thing I do for simple 3D objects is convert to surfaces. Lay all surfaces on the same plane. Convert to curves. Offset for material thickness where needed. Export.

I was the Art Director for a major comic book publisher for 10 years dealing with up to 100 studios and numerous print houses and whatnot. Only once was I given a Corel file. I sent it directly to film output and let them deal with it. They were not happy.

[Art Mann]

I'm thinking the OP is wanting a graphical representation - something like a perspective drawing - that he can etch onto some suitable material. If that is true then surface projections or cross sections won't do him much good.