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Thread: Learning Curve - CorelDraw to EzCad2

  1. #31
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    Email it to me jliferjr@yahoo.com. im not doing anything....
    Woodworking, Old Tools and Shooting
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    Jet JWS18, bandsaw Carbide Create CNC, RIA 22TCM 1911s and others

  2. #32
    The only time I've had trouble is when I export to DXF from Gravostyle, everything comes in to EZcad with rounded straight lines. But Gravostyle has no output option, it just does it. But the same files imported into Corel from Gravo are perfect? DXF's from Gravo into Casmate are also sketchy. Best way to import into Casmate and Gravostyle is and EPS file. But EZcad doesn't have an EPS option? Always hoops to jump thru

    Anyway, other than a couple of photos, the ONLY way I export/import to EZcad is DXF from Corel.

    I just did this cheezy step-by-step, and I used this graphic because it's fairly complex, the original is engraved on the guys motorcycle seat --
    Screenshot of the graphic as saved in corel, with my seat 'alignment aid' outlines. Graphic is about 8-1/2" wide-
    c1.jpg

    I've removed the color and seat lines, this is what I'm exporting-
    c2.jpg

    This is DXF export dialog box, I've always used these settings (at least since 2007 )
    for all my programs, even into my old Casmate, with no problems.
    c3.jpg

    Now I'm importing into EZcad, the thumbnail looks fine--
    c4.jpg

    -at 8-1/2" it's too big obviously, so I just randomly sized it down (not shown, 8 pic limit )
    EZ cad says I got it to 66.56mm across (about 2-5/8").
    c5.jpg

    I did a 45-135 hatch @ .05, this is a closeup...
    Couldn't ask for better detail.
    c6.jpg

    Ran it on a piece of black/brass lasersteel, 2500 speed, 20 power, 50 freq,
    one hatch done, the second about half done...
    c7.jpg

    Finished-- looks pretty good, other than I should've used my negative version!
    c8.jpg

    I've had my fiber for 13 months now, and without fail whatever I see in Corel is what I get in EZcad. It's why I haven't messed with AI or other vector type files.

    I'm using Corel x4, which may or may not matter. I do know that Corel x6 would never send a decent file to my old ULS laser, and we could never figure out why. The engraving produced from x6 files looked like a miniature version of a diamond-grip gunstock pattern. The same exact file sent from x4 produced 'normal' smooth engraving...
    Last edited by Kev Williams; 08-19-2017 at 7:13 PM.
    ========================================
    ELEVEN - rotary cutter tool machines
    FOUR - CO2 lasers
    THREE- make that FOUR now - fiber lasers
    ONE - vinyl cutter
    CASmate, Corel, Gravostyle


  3. #33
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    Tim, sent you back some files. Was able to export to dxf and then import into ezcad as Vector. Some extraneous lines when I tried hatching. I did work on eliminating some layers that were duplicates and That did help some. Maybe someone has some tricks to help with that, I still struggle with getting some images correct.
    Woodworking, Old Tools and Shooting
    Ray Fine RF-1390 Laser Ray Fine 20watt Fiber Laser
    SFX 50 Watt Fiber Laser
    PM2000, Delta BS, Delta sander, Powermatic 50 jointer,
    Powermatic 100-12 planer, Rockwell 15-126 radial drill press
    Rockwell 46-450 lathe, and 2 Walker Turner RA1100 radial saws
    Jet JWS18, bandsaw Carbide Create CNC, RIA 22TCM 1911s and others

  4. #34
    feel free to send me a file or two- > kevin@engraver1.com <

    -extraneous lines, sometimes EXcad produces them, I get them quite often when using the fully-connected 'fast' hatch, some of the lines stay connected from one point to another when they shouldn't...
    ========================================
    ELEVEN - rotary cutter tool machines
    FOUR - CO2 lasers
    THREE- make that FOUR now - fiber lasers
    ONE - vinyl cutter
    CASmate, Corel, Gravostyle


  5. #35
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    Seems I failed to help Tim determine his problem I could easily import but he still couldn't. I have no clue
    Woodworking, Old Tools and Shooting
    Ray Fine RF-1390 Laser Ray Fine 20watt Fiber Laser
    SFX 50 Watt Fiber Laser
    PM2000, Delta BS, Delta sander, Powermatic 50 jointer,
    Powermatic 100-12 planer, Rockwell 15-126 radial drill press
    Rockwell 46-450 lathe, and 2 Walker Turner RA1100 radial saws
    Jet JWS18, bandsaw Carbide Create CNC, RIA 22TCM 1911s and others

  6. #36
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    Quote Originally Posted by John Lifer View Post
    Seems I failed to help Tim determine his problem I could easily import but he still couldn't. I have no clue
    Could be the version numbers I'm running. I may have to try upgrading. Corel x6 & EzCad is 2.9.4
    Tim
    There are Big Brain people & Small Brain people. I'm one of the Big Brains - with a lot of empty space.- me
    50W Fiber - Raycus/MaxPhotonics - It's a metal eating beast!
    Epilog Fusion M2 50/30 Co2/Fiber - 2015
    Epilog Mini 24 – 35watt - 2006 (Original Tube)
    Ricoh SG3110DN
    - Liberty Laser LLC

  7. #37
    With Corel you might want to downgrade--

    My BIL has X6 on the computer he uses downstairs, I'll do some testing and see if it gives me any grief...

    Meanwhile, if you haven't already Tim, email me the file in question

    >edit< I opened up these sugar skulls in Corel x6, exported them DXF as I did in the above samples,
    and they imported just fine in my EZcad- which is version 2.5.4-- so maybe no Corel downgrade needed!
    sugar.jpg

    this here > sugar skulls for Corel10.cdr < is a Corel 10 file of these skull, minus the bottom one since all 4 put the filesize over the limit. Each one is combined so they can be moved easy

    I'm curious to see what happens if you export/import these into your EZcad--
    -if they work okay, your problem may be the file you're working with...
    -if they don't work okay, could be an issue with your newer version of EZcad...

    I did all 4 at once with no problem...
    Last edited by Kev Williams; 08-20-2017 at 1:37 PM.
    ========================================
    ELEVEN - rotary cutter tool machines
    FOUR - CO2 lasers
    THREE- make that FOUR now - fiber lasers
    ONE - vinyl cutter
    CASmate, Corel, Gravostyle


  8. #38
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    Just to test, I opened with corel x7, exported to DXF, (I've been using bmp setting rather than jpg, seems to be no difference in outcome for me) and they opened fine in excad, 2.12.1
    hatched fine.
    Woodworking, Old Tools and Shooting
    Ray Fine RF-1390 Laser Ray Fine 20watt Fiber Laser
    SFX 50 Watt Fiber Laser
    PM2000, Delta BS, Delta sander, Powermatic 50 jointer,
    Powermatic 100-12 planer, Rockwell 15-126 radial drill press
    Rockwell 46-450 lathe, and 2 Walker Turner RA1100 radial saws
    Jet JWS18, bandsaw Carbide Create CNC, RIA 22TCM 1911s and others

  9. #39
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    I use X6 and 2.12.0 EZCad that's about all I use is DXF and a BMP for images to engrave.
    Retired Guy- Central Iowa.HVAC/R , Cloudray Galvo Fiber , -Windows 10

  10. #40
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    Thank you everyone for the effort. I learned a lot from my own trial & mostly error and other's as well. I did finally got a good image in EzCad!
    1. I took the original vector image with it's zillion layers into Photoshop.
    2. Saved as a .eps file.
    3. Imported this as curves into Corel instead of the many layered .pdf.
    4. Traced bitmap as line art.
    5. Sized.
    6. Failed 1st attempt -exported as .dxf. This failed as there was nothing to view in EzCad & when imported there was no image.
    7. Success on 2nd try - exported as .ai (ver 8.0, Preserve appearance, Export Text as Text, Convert outlines to objects)
    8. Import Vector .ai file. Hash as desired - tried several hashes, all worked. The now extremely small details were visible on the test piece. I tried to photograph, but it's just too damn small to see well with my phone.
    9. SAVED the EzCad file.

    Once I get my alignment perfect (red square), I'll engrave the officer's duty weapon - a 45cal S&W. Probably Monday night.

    Thanks again for all of the help.
    Tim
    There are Big Brain people & Small Brain people. I'm one of the Big Brains - with a lot of empty space.- me
    50W Fiber - Raycus/MaxPhotonics - It's a metal eating beast!
    Epilog Fusion M2 50/30 Co2/Fiber - 2015
    Epilog Mini 24 – 35watt - 2006 (Original Tube)
    Ricoh SG3110DN
    - Liberty Laser LLC

  11. #41
    And that's why I keep repeating myself about using V8 .ai files!

    Glad you got it worked out.
    Lasers : Trotec Speedy 300 75W, Trotec Speedy 300 80W, Galvo Fiber Laser 20W
    Printers : Mimaki UJF-6042 UV Flatbed Printer , HP Designjet L26500 61" Wide Format Latex Printer, Summa S140-T 48" Vinyl Plotter
    Router : ShopBot 48" x 96" CNC Router Rotary Engravers : (2) Xenetech XOT 16 x 25 Rotary Engravers

    Real name Steve but that name was taken on the forum. Used Middle name. Call me Steve or Scott, doesn't matter.

  12. #42
    Old v New graphics technology...

    I worked on Tims logo Saturday strictly in Corel, just to see if I could figure out how to weld/cut/trim/etc objects behind something in front of another object. There's simply no routine that does what I want, except maybe Powerclip, but I can only get it to keep objects INSIDE 'the container', and I wanted just opposite.

    And just running the screenshot thru Corel's Trace routine is completely useless, so I didn't even bother trying.
    --But Casmate's trace ('vectorize') is simply fantastic...

    So, this morning while drinking my coffee, I blew up the screenshot to about 3x screensize, 'took a snapshot' then pasted it into Corel PhotoPaint. Then I changed it from CYMK to RGB, then split the channels to CYMK. One of those choices eliminated a bunch of useless (for this project) background and left everything else intact. I had to darken the result, easy enough. Then I exported it as a TIF, and then imported into my 24 year old Casmate Lite program, then clicked 'vectorize'. Took about 20 seconds (which is about 15 seconds more than usual, it's a busy graphic), and I got a near perfect useable as-is result. The whole process to this point took less than 5 minutes. The computer used is also ancient, an old HP pavillion running a 200mh Intel processor and 68 megs of ram, and win98. Yet both Casmate's ('lite', a win3.0 program and the DOS version) handle this graphic with ease, and will draw the entire graphic just as fast as Corel OR Gravostyle does on this 8-core 3.2 w/12g ram workstation, with no points-- but add points and Corel and GS take 3x as long to just draw it on the screen as Casmate. And funny thing, as fast as Casmate took it from photo to full useable vector, Corel won't even combine it because it's "too complex, exceeds 64k bytes"... that's just plain ROTF material. Reducing nodes in Corel didn't work, still too busy. Didn't work in GS either, and waiting for GS to draw 70,000 points is a go-get-coffee-and-wait deal, ech.. Back to old DOS Casmate, where I sized the logo down a ton, which will reduce points by default, then did an 'automatic cleanup', then re-exported as DXF and imported back into Corel. I still had to reduce nodes once in Corel, but finally got it to combine the entire graphic. And even after jumping thru hoops, the whole process took less than 15 minutes, thanks to Casmate. For some reason EZcad doesn't care for Casmate's (or Gravostyle's) DXF output, if it did I wouldn't even need Corel for this graphic.

    it just stumps me why an old ancient vinyl-cutting program works as well as it does compared to a 14th version of Corel. Of course Corel is miles above when it comes to 'artistic' features, but where Casmate shines is in "basic" vector graphic creating and editing, and especially vectorizing black and white art into something useable. It doesn't mess around, is simply traces any black it sees, and it's done, fast and accurate. 15 minutes start to finish even with 'complex' issues, not bad. Maybe AI works better than Corel in this regard, if so maybe I should give it a look...
    ========================================
    ELEVEN - rotary cutter tool machines
    FOUR - CO2 lasers
    THREE- make that FOUR now - fiber lasers
    ONE - vinyl cutter
    CASmate, Corel, Gravostyle


  13. #43
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    I played around with it Sunday using Corel. What a joke! It just churned and churned. I opened up taskmanager and watched it eat up resources until it crashed. Never tried casemate. Old school might be better!
    Woodworking, Old Tools and Shooting
    Ray Fine RF-1390 Laser Ray Fine 20watt Fiber Laser
    SFX 50 Watt Fiber Laser
    PM2000, Delta BS, Delta sander, Powermatic 50 jointer,
    Powermatic 100-12 planer, Rockwell 15-126 radial drill press
    Rockwell 46-450 lathe, and 2 Walker Turner RA1100 radial saws
    Jet JWS18, bandsaw Carbide Create CNC, RIA 22TCM 1911s and others

  14. #44
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    I used to keep a copy of the Plasma CAM software around. It worked good with DXF files and would automatically join lines and otherwise if needed. It was pretty darn good software and did not have all the bells and whistles but it worked.
    Retired Guy- Central Iowa.HVAC/R , Cloudray Galvo Fiber , -Windows 10

  15. #45
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    Update - the Police Captain loved the result. However the department Chief did not. So they are now simplifying the graphic. At 1 inch and above the original looks fantastic, but I have to admit at around 1/2 inch it was near impossible to see details without a magnifying glass. The details were all there, just not very visible to the human eye.

    On another note - 50watts of fiber will eat metal like its tissue paper. I guess I could have saved myself a few bucks, but I'm sure there will be a projects that 100% power will come in handy.
    Tim
    There are Big Brain people & Small Brain people. I'm one of the Big Brains - with a lot of empty space.- me
    50W Fiber - Raycus/MaxPhotonics - It's a metal eating beast!
    Epilog Fusion M2 50/30 Co2/Fiber - 2015
    Epilog Mini 24 – 35watt - 2006 (Original Tube)
    Ricoh SG3110DN
    - Liberty Laser LLC

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