Single-Stroke font program hunting ...

[Bill George]

OK Here you go. I made some adjustments in the focus and power on the bottom one, and I am not knowledgeable on how many single line fonts that come with QCAD. My laser is 50 watt ULS, top was done at 50% power 100% speed, bottom about 8 mm out of focus and 70% power 100% speed on Birch.

[Eric Allen]

Just to be clear, this was not burned directly from QCAD, it was exported as SVG, then imported to Corel, correct? Also, was that one line for each letter, or did it go all the way around them? Just from appearances it's hard to tell, it almost looks rastered in both sections (obviously out of focus on the second one accounts for that).

P.S., thanks for the effort in any case, really nice of you to take the time in spite of the recent surgery

OK Here you go. I made some adjustments in the focus and power on the bottom one, and I am not knowledgeable on how many single line fonts that come with QCAD. My laser is 50 watt ULS, top was done at 50% power 100% speed, bottom about 8 mm out of focus and 70% power 100% speed on Birch.

[Kev Williams]

Gravostyle won't run an Epilog, but it doesn't need to. Any job that can be 'built' in Corel can be built in Gravostyle. I import/export DXF and EPS files all day every day between 2 different Casmate's, NH Opensys, Corel, Gravostyle 5 and Gravostyle 7. No single program does everything I want or need, I use what's best for what I need done. The importing/exporting between programs only takes a couple of seconds.

If I had to do all my graphics with only any two of the programs I use, I'd never get anything done!


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[Bill George]

Eric it made the lines like you would do with a pencil or pen, it did not retrace. Like I said, I did the DXF first but Corel was wanting to change the fonts. The one thingI did not try was printing to the laser directly from QCAD with the ULS driver? I do not know how the Epilog driver works, perhaps others with more experience can help.

[Ross Moshinsky]

Gravostyle won't run an Epilog, but it doesn't need to. Any job that can be 'built' in Corel can be built in Gravostyle. I import/export DXF and EPS files all day every day between 2 different Casmate's, NH Opensys, Corel, Gravostyle 5 and Gravostyle 7. No single program does everything I want or need, I use what's best for what I need done. The importing/exporting between programs only takes a couple of seconds.

If I had to do all my graphics with only any two of the programs I use, I'd never get anything done!

Gravostyle will "run" any laser just like Corel will. File -> Print -> Epilog Driver/Laser. Simple as can be.

I do think you devalue what can be involved in importing/exporting. For example, bringing a job from Illustrator/Corel that isn't drawn correctly and you will have a hell of a time bringing it into Gravostyle and getting it work properly. Like you, I use plenty of different programs and import/export regularly, but I do so with a full knowledge of what works and what doesn't. It's very easy to go down a time sucking worm hole if you don't know what works and what doesn't.

[Bill George]

Ross and Kev, that's where your experience shows, knowing what to do and when.

[Eric Allen]

The .dxf issue is normal, there are lots of fonts in the CAD world that have no direct analog in TT. .DXF is kind of a crappy format to import into Corel, they behave very differently so the way things are closed and filled can be a real hassle.
Direct printing would be ideal. I'm avoiding any import/export like the plague, it just ads an area of risk where I've only got .005 on a good day for clearance before the part is toasted to begin with. Thus far the driver will only raster. Vectoring is a simple matter in the Epilog driver. You just have to set the line width to less than .007 (most of us just use "hairline") and let 'er rip, from Corel at least The closest adjustment I could find was a metric one, so I set the line width way below the threshold and it was still raster-only. I suspect someone will stumble onto the one little change that will make it happen, so far it just hasn't been me Come to think of it, that metric thing might be it. I have all the QCAD defaults set to inch/imperial, but that one feature still pops up as metric.

Eric it made the lines like you would do with a pencil or pen, it did not retrace. Like I said, I did the DXF first but Corel was wanting to change the fonts. The one thingI did not try was printing to the laser directly from QCAD with the ULS driver? I do not know how the Epilog driver works, perhaps others with more experience can help.

[Roy Sanders]

hi George
I downloaded CamBam, will you tell me now how to use it in corel? I am still too new to know this stuff

Roy

[Eric Allen]

If you mean you downloaded the fonts (CamBam is actually a CNC program), just extract them into your windows fonts folder, then use them like any other font from within Corel.

hi George
I downloaded CamBam, will you tell me now how to use it in corel? I am still too new to know this stuff

Roy

[Kev Williams]

Gravostyle will "run" any laser just like Corel will. File -> Print -> Epilog Driver/Laser. Simple as can be.

I only wish. Been wishing I could run my ULS from Gravo for years. Yes, the printer driver will send info to a printer or laser, but it won't be anything you can use. The output from the print driver is based on the default dimensions of whatever your default machine is. In my case, if I send a job based on and laid out within the 12x18 table like my ULS, or from any other starting "plate size", the driver fits whatever I send somewhere within the 24x24" LS900 dimensions.

That's just part of the problem Try this yourself-- Make up any job in Gravo, to 8-1/2 x 11 paper size, just some words or simple shapes. Hit the PRINT button, and choose any 'ink' printer then hit "print preview". What you'll get is your job in a bounding box, within the white screen which represents the default machine's dimensions. Notice at the bottom of the screen will be the filename of the job you're printing. Now print it. The printer will print the bounding box AND the filename along with the actual job. And so will any laser you send any job to. There's no fix that I know of for this...

[Eric Allen]

I tried running vectors from Inkscape, can't get a vector to run at all from there, so even if I wanted to take the extra time with Hershey, it doesn't seem to be an option. Starting to look like a driver issue since I set the line width at .001. Tried just a plain old square and no luck either.

[Tony Lenkic]

I only wish. Been wishing I could run my ULS from Gravo for years. Yes, the printer driver will send info to a printer or laser, but it won't be anything you can use. The output from the print driver is based on the default dimensions of whatever your default machine is. In my case, if I send a job based on and laid out within the 12x18 table like my ULS, or from any other starting "plate size", the driver fits whatever I send somewhere within the 24x24" LS900 dimensions.

That's just part of the problem Try this yourself-- Make up any job in Gravo, to 8-1/2 x 11 paper size, just some words or simple shapes. Hit the PRINT button, and choose any 'ink' printer then hit "print preview". What you'll get is your job in a bounding box, within the white screen which represents the default machine's dimensions. Notice at the bottom of the screen will be the filename of the job you're printing. Now print it. The printer will print the bounding box AND the filename along with the actual job. And so will any laser you send any job to. There's no fix that I know of for this...

Kev,
I have never worked with gravo program but I do work with Xenetech program for a long time and I can print to either ULS or Trotec print drivers without a problem of any kind. Anything created in program weather text or graphics is engraved to the scale in raster or vector cut, front engraved or reverse engraved if checked as such. I would have expected same from gravostyle.

[William Adams]

Don’t directly print from Inkscape, save a .svg as the active source, export a .pdf and import that into whatever app you normally use.

[Ross Moshinsky]

I only wish. Been wishing I could run my ULS from Gravo for years. Yes, the printer driver will send info to a printer or laser, but it won't be anything you can use. The output from the print driver is based on the default dimensions of whatever your default machine is. In my case, if I send a job based on and laid out within the 12x18 table like my ULS, or from any other starting "plate size", the driver fits whatever I send somewhere within the 24x24" LS900 dimensions.

That's just part of the problem Try this yourself-- Make up any job in Gravo, to 8-1/2 x 11 paper size, just some words or simple shapes. Hit the PRINT button, and choose any 'ink' printer then hit "print preview". What you'll get is your job in a bounding box, within the white screen which represents the default machine's dimensions. Notice at the bottom of the screen will be the filename of the job you're printing. Now print it. The printer will print the bounding box AND the filename along with the actual job. And so will any laser you send any job to. There's no fix that I know of for this...

Um, I've used Gravostyle for years with sublimation and many other types of proofs, including larger signage to be done by Gemini and other vendors without an issue. Uncheck the "Include Info" button to get rid of the margin box and file name.

Also the page size is not an issue either. Just setup a page size with your printer. I print full sized PDFs, 18x32 files to my ULS, and all sorts of document sizes from Gravostyle. It's never been a real issue.

[Eric Allen]

That's exactly the kind of hassle I'm avoiding. On the plus side, for those interested, you CAN vector directly from Inkscape. I found an old bug fix file that discusses exactly why it's a problem and they implemented an extension to fix it specifically because of issues with lasers. I'm not sure how it works on hybrid vector and raster stuff, my application makes that unnecessary. To run a vector directly from Inkscape you have to set you laser as the default system printer, click on "Extensions", click "Export", click "Win32 Vector Print" and that will pop up your laser driver IF you set it as your windows default first. The short version of the issue is the driver Inkscape uses to output files rasterizes, so you have to use their workaround. I suspect a similar issue in many other programs I have tried that don't vector when we need them to. Hopefully this solution will be of value to people that are following this thread, it's "meh" for me, but that's a combination of productivity rate (having to use Hershey Text) and also a laser resolution issue at this point.

Don’t directly print from Inkscape, save a .svg as the active source, export a .pdf and import that into whatever app you normally use.