The Lightblade Learning Lab with Russ Sadler
The Lightblade Learning Lab is a series of videos that Russ did for Thinklaser Limited based on using the Lightblade 4060 Laser Cutting and Engraving Machine. Thinklasers Lightblade 4060 has a 400 x 600mm bed size and was supplied with a 60W EFR laser tube. In This Session, Russ will show us how to convert a bitmap to a vector file and suggests some software packages you can use.
Contents
- Looking at the creative side of making a gift box
- Searching for designs on the Internet (first using the example of a butterfly)
- Taking a screengrab
- Using Photoshop
- Editor’s Note: you could try GIMP as a free alternative
- How to convert the bitmap into a vector drawing
- Using ‘Posterize’ and ‘Discard Color Information’
- Using the Adobe Illustrator ‘Trace’ function
- Export to DXF
- Opening the file with a CAD program
- Showing that some of the lines may actually be double lines because the trace function has traced both the black and the white colours
- Converting from splines to lines and arcs
- Measuring and correcting angular errors
- Trimming one half of an object and then mirroring it to produce a symmetrical version
- Using the offset function to strengthen parts of the object
- Looking for an idea for a box on the Internet
- Types of paper used for cardboard engineering
- Cutting the model
- Folding and slotting together the model
My thanks go out to Tom at Thinklaser for giving permission to embed these videos on this site. If you are looking for a new laser machine from a quality supplier, then I would suggest you check out their website: www.thinklaser.com.
Video Resource Files for how to convert a bitmap to a vector file
There are no resource files associated with this video.
External Resource Links for how to convert a bitmap to a vector file
There are no more external resource links associated with this video.
Transcript for how to convert a bitmap to a vector file
Click the “Show More” button to reveal the transcript, and use your browsers Find function to search for specific sections of interest.
[bg_collapse view=”button-orange” color=”#7ab51d” icon=”arrow” expand_text=”Show More” collapse_text=”Show Less” ]
00:15
Welcome to another Lightblade learning lab
00:17
if you cast your mind back to the
00:20
previous session and we made a little
00:23
box, i promised you then that we would make a
00:27
slightly different version of a gift box
00:29
and what I plan to do is to show you the
00:32
creative or perhaps it’s the non-creative
00:36
process that i go through to make one of
00:40
these boxes my artistic creative skills
00:43
are pretty close to zero so i have to
00:46
rely on borrowing other people’s skills
00:49
to make my designs and i’m going to show
00:53
you that process today and along the way
00:56
I should be showing you how we’re going
00:58
to convert a bitmap file into a vector
01:02
file so that it can be cut on here as
01:04
opposed to engraved. Well to show you how
01:07
i go about producing some of my designs
01:10
as i mentioned to you i’m no artist so I
01:14
have to go and look for other people’s
01:16
artistic talent and bolt things together
01:19
that i can find on the interweb but
01:21
today we’re going to start off by
01:22
hunting for a butterfly to use in this
01:26
project now it’s not a real butterfly, what
01:30
I want to find and i’m going to put this in
01:32
a search for butterfly graphics
01:38
that’s always a good term to use
01:40
“graphics” because it will get you to
01:42
pictures like this and then we’ve got
01:47
images of butterfly graphics now i can
01:50
already see one there that i think is
01:52
quite nice
01:53
we are eventually going to have to make
01:55
this black-and-white so we could either
01:58
choose something like this one
Transcript for how to convert a bitmap to a vector file (Cont…)
02:01
I mean they are loads to choose from as
02:03
you can see and we’ve got a nice clear
02:04
picture there and we will now do a
02:09
screen grab of it so we should just do a…..
02:12
and then we should go to photoshop now
02:18
you may not have photoshop you may have
02:20
something else
02:21
photoshop is something that I prefer and
02:24
i use but i’m going to show you how I do
02:27
it and then you can adapt this method to
02:29
suit your your software. We’re trying to
02:32
convert this now into a DXF file which
02:36
basically is a vector format file what
02:39
we have here at the moment is a bitmap
02:41
file with all sorts of shades and colors
02:43
in it but what we are trying to do is to get a
02:45
skeletal drawing that we can cut rather
02:50
than engrave and to do that what I’m
02:52
going to do is go to image adjustments
02:56
and down at the bottom I’ve got
02:57
something called Posterise, now i can set
03:01
the posterised levels to different
03:02
levels and really where after
03:06
black-and-white and if black-and-white is
03:08
what we’re after
03:09
then we’re after only two levels and
03:13
there we are, we’ve got rid of the shadow
03:14
around the outside and we’ve got the
03:18
basic shape still the only problem is we
03:21
still got some yellow in this and colour
03:23
so we can get rid of that as well by
03:25
going somewhere else
03:26
ok now we can go to image we can go to
03:32
mode then we can go to grayscale, discard
03:38
the colour information. In two simple steps
03:41
we’ve got ourselves a nice black and
03:43
white image crisp black and white image
03:45
now we need to save that…. PNG is a good
03:49
format
03:49
ok now I’m going to go and work in Adobe
03:53
Illustrator so we will open this PNG
Transcript for how to convert a bitmap to a vector file (Cont…)
04:02
here
04:04
and we’ll use the object trace
04:07
live trace make
04:11
and then we’ll do edit sorry object
04:15
again live trace
04:18
and the option that we want is show the
04:20
tracing results show outlines
04:24
and there we go so we know we’ve got the
04:26
outlines i can either take it as an
04:29
autocad drawing which I can deal with or
04:31
we can do
04:32
dxf file we’ll try the dxf file and now
04:35
we’re going to my cad program butterfly
04:37
dxf and there we go we’ve got the
04:40
butterfly dxf now as a CAD file
04:48
Now the only problem is the chances are that
04:51
if we look at this closely we shall
04:53
probably find that there are two lines
04:55
we find a corner somewhere we might find
04:59
it there are two tracings here look can
05:03
you see that we’ve got a tracing of the
05:05
black outline and a tracing of the white
05:07
outline that’s one of the problems with
05:11
doing a tracing so we’ve got two lots of
05:15
data there overlapped on top of each
05:17
other and so first of all we convert
05:19
this from splines as they call them, which
05:21
is that Brown shape and convert to lines and arcs //
05:24
lines and circles lines and arcs
05:26
that’s all we’ve got to play with and so
05:28
that’s how this drawing will get
05:30
converted even though it looks like all
05:32
sorts of funny shapes it will get
05:33
converted into just those two features
05:35
delete the original ok
05:42
there we go, that’s turned nice and green
05:44
which tells me it’s now been converted
05:45
into something called geometry what
05:48
we’re really interested in is a
05:50
butterfly
05:52
we’re not interested in a wonky
05:53
butterfly so what we should do as we
05:56
will draw a line approximately through
Transcript for how to convert a bitmap to a vector file (Cont…)
06:02
the middle of this butterfly here like
06:07
that
06:11
and then we’ll see how far off of
06:13
vertical it is by drawing a vertical
06:15
line F6, no F3 sorry and then we’ll go up
06:20
here will measure the angle
06:26
and the angle between that line and that
06:29
line is 3.618 so we can pick up this
06:35
whole drawing and rotate it, rotate
06:44
about any point 3.618 enter, enter and
06:51
there we go we’ve now got a butterfly
06:54
that’s vertical now we can choose either
06:59
half for our master and i’ll tell you what
07:03
we should do
07:06
we’ll just delete that because we don’t need it any
07:08
more, we’ll delete that because we
07:10
don’t need it anymore and this piece
07:12
here
07:13
well this is quite important because
07:14
what we’re going to do now, is there’s a feature here
07:17
called trim, trim
07:22
trim
07:24
and now everything else are separate
07:26
features and so now i should be able to do
07:28
delete just come in here like this and delete them
07:35
and there we go so now we’ve got half a
07:37
butterfly we’re gonna finish up with a
07:38
whole butterfly but what we’re going to
07:41
do is we are going to have to think about this
07:43
because some of this stuff is going to
07:46
be very delicate between these wings by
07:48
the time, by the time we cut these
07:51
out so what we need to do is to rework
07:56
this, I mean for instance here look we’ve
07:58
got a join here we can’t have that what we
08:01
can do we can put an offset in and let’s
08:03
just see what we’ve got
08:04
offset of, we’ll offset geometry and we’ll
08:07
offset it by just say one millimeter and
08:11
see how much that is
08:19
yeah that looks quite nice
08:22
maybe we can just do it the simple way
08:24
like this
08:28
we’ll offset all of these by one mill
08:34
bear in mind as I said to you there are double
08:37
shapes on here so i have to delete them
08:39
twice
08:42
ok now the gaps between those shapes now
08:45
are probably more realistic so I’ll go around and
08:50
take all the double images off
08:57
right, so there’s our basic butterfly, well there it’s a
09:00
bit um, it’s a little bit tight just here isn’t it
09:04
it’s getting close to this, this gap here
09:06
is going to be very small so i think
09:09
what we might do is just change that
09:11
slightly, we’ll delete that and then we will
09:17
just put this tangent to line or arc on
09:20
here and we join it onto the end of there
09:23
like that
09:25
there we go that’s better right, so now
09:27
we’ve got a much stronger antenna and we
09:31
might need the body stretched a little
09:33
bit so what I might do is to
09:40
put something like a two-millimeter
09:42
offset on this to start with so we’ll
09:44
put two millimeter offset on here like
09:48
that
09:50
we’ll delete this, basically what we’ve done is we’ve
09:53
changed the centre line and we’re gonna make
09:55
this moth, we’re going to make this
09:56
butterfly fatter nobody will notice that
09:59
so now we shall mirror
Transcript for how to convert a bitmap to a vector file (Cont…)
10:05
this
10:07
keep the original
10:11
and then we will do an
10:13
extend
10:16
to that line, like that
10:22
and then we’ll do one of these tangent to arc
10:25
things
10:27
from here
10:31
to here well there’s our beautiful vector
10:35
butterfly now courtesy of some no skill
10:41
on my part so that’s part one of this
10:45
project and it’s taken, taken the best part of ah….
10:51
three-quarters of an hour to do that so
10:53
we’ve got our basic graphic idea we’ve
10:55
got a butterfly now I want to try and
10:58
find a little box or I want to find
11:01
inspiration from somewhere for a box
11:04
design so I’m going to nick somebody
11:06
else’s idea now, let’s go and have a look
11:09
at wedding favor boxes, here we go… images
11:16
this is what we want
11:25
I’m just looking for something that’s a
11:28
little bit different, oh look
11:29
there’s an interesting box
11:32
could have done something like that
11:33
couldn’t I
11:38
now I see something like this and think
11:40
triangular, oh look that’s an interesting
11:42
one as well I saw something here look
11:44
these boxes here it’s not what I want
11:48
but I’ve just seen something in my mind
11:51
that that I can see working so okay
11:55
you’ve seen me pinch a butterfly you’ve
11:59
seen me pinch a basic idea for a box
Transcript for how to convert a bitmap to a vector file (Cont…)
12:02
this is the way that I go about my
12:04
cardboard engineering so I should go
12:06
back to my cad system now and I’m not
12:08
going to drag you through the pain of
12:10
design so i’ll present you with my
12:12
design when it’s finished now this is
12:14
the paper that i tend to use for my
12:17
cards and for most of my cardboard
12:20
engineering it’s it’s a nice white art
12:23
paper i’ll take the red stuff out
12:27
because that’s something slightly
12:28
different but this is a hundred sheets
12:32
which come in a pad and it’s basically a
12:34
watercolor paper as you can see but it’s
12:38
200 grams and it’s got a very nice sort
12:40
of a texture to it now what I’ve got to
12:46
do is take a quick look at my pin bed
12:48
underneath here because we need to make
12:52
sure we’ve got support down the middle
12:54
we will just check we’ve got our focus set to
12:56
6.5
13:02
we need air but not too much of it
14:09
you can see that some of the detail on
Transcript for how to convert a bitmap to a vector file (Cont…)
14:11
here there’s a little bit on the
14:13
delicate side
14:16
ok let’s see what the end result is
14:18
going to be like shall we?
14:20
so that’s the outside so we need to
14:24
tuck these little tabs down
14:28
we need to fold these back
14:40
and that’s in essence what the box is
14:43
about
14:47
but what I got to do now is if we look
14:50
carefully you’ll see that I’ve left a
14:51
little slot at the bottom here and a
14:54
little slot at the top there so we’ve
14:57
got to do is very carefully engage these
15:00
two butterflies together like that
15:08
so they sit neatly on the corner
15:09
crossed over like that look just like a
15:12
little butterfly sitting there on the
15:13
corner and they hold the edges of the
15:16
box together so we’ve got to do that for
15:18
all four corners carefully
15:23
folding to each other like this
15:46
there we go
15:50
and then
15:57
we’re going to put this pair across the top here
15:58
we’re going to engage those two little teeth
Transcript for how to convert a bitmap to a vector file (Cont…)
16:02
like that
16:07
and then we can do the same thing with
16:09
these two butterflies but the opposite
16:11
so we’re going to have to pull these very gently
16:14
apart to get them past each other
16:20
and there we go we’ve got a very delicate
16:22
little gift box
16:26
something any young lady would be very
16:28
pleased to receive that especially if it’s
16:31
got diamond rings or diamond earrings or
16:36
an airline ticket to New York or
16:41
the possibilities are endless
16:44
there is one other possibility for this
16:46
which if you’re in business rather than
16:49
trying to impress your young lady
16:52
you could quite easily cut or etch names on
16:58
these
16:59
and these could be wedding favors and
17:02
place positions, seating positions both
17:06
at the same time
17:09
so maybe there’s some business there for
17:12
somebody this design will be available
17:14
from the Thinklaser website the same
17:16
as the other boxes will be as well so
17:19
feel free to use it
17:21
adapt it, modify it, well I hope that i’ve
17:24
demonstrated that there’s a lot of
17:26
potential in cardboard engineering
17:29
both to enjoy yourself and maybe to make
17:32
some money as well
17:34
so what I can say to you is thank you
17:36
very much for your patience
17:38
we shall return to cardboard engineering
17:40
later on in the series when we’re
17:41
probably do some birthday cards
17:43
Christmas cards Easter cards depends on
17:47
the time of the year but for now thank
17:49
you very much for your time and I shall
17:51
see you in the next session
[/bg_collapse]
What Next?
Did you enjoy this post? Why not check out some of our other posts:
Disclaimer
Last updated April 25, 2024
WEBSITE DISCLAIMER
The information provided by n-Deavor Limited, trading as Laseruser.com (“we,” “us” , or “our”) on (the “Site”) is for general informational purposes only. All information on the Site is provided in good faith, however we make no representation or warranty of any kind, express or implied, regarding the accuracy, adequacy, validity, reliability, availability or completeness of any information on the Site.
UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCE SHALL WE HAVE ANY LIABILITY TO YOU FOR ANY LOSS OR DAMAGE OF ANY KIND INCURRED AS A RESULT OF THE USE OF THE SITE OR RELIANCE ON ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED ON THE SITE. YOUR USE OF THE SITE AND YOUR RELIANCE ON ANY INFORMATION ON THE SITE IS SOLELY AT YOUR OWN RISK.
EXTERNAL LINKS DISCLAIMER
The Site may contain (or you may be sent through the Site) links to other websites or content belonging to or originating from third parties or links to websites and features in banners or other advertising. Such external links are not investigated, monitored, or checked for accuracy, adequacy, validity, reliability, availability or completeness by us.
WE DO NOT WARRANT, ENDORSE, GUARANTEE, OR ASSUME RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ACCURACY OR RELIABILITY OF ANY INFORMATION OFFERED BY THIRD-PARTY WEBSITES LINKED THROUGH THE SITE OR ANY WEBSITE OR FEATURE LINKED IN ANY BANNER OR OTHER ADVERTISING.
WE WILL NOT BE A PARTY TO OR IN ANY WAY BE RESPONSIBLE FOR MONITORING ANY TRANSACTION BETWEEN YOU AND THIRD-PARTY PROVIDERS OF PRODUCTS OR SERVICES.
AFFILIATES DISCLAIMER
The Site may contain links to affiliate websites, and we receive an affiliate commission for any purchases made by you on the affiliate website using such links. Our affiliates include the following:
- makeCNC who provide Downloadable Patterns, Software, Hardware and other content for Laser Cutters, CNC Routers, Plasma, WaterJets, CNC Milling Machines, and other Robotic Tools. They also provide Pattern Files in PDF format for Scroll Saw Users. They are known for their Friendly and Efficient Customer Service and have a comprehensive back catalogue as well as continually providing New Patterns and Content.
- Cloudray Laser: a world-leading laser parts and solutions provider, has established a whole series of laser product lines, range from CO2 engraving & cutting machine parts, fiber cutting machine parts and laser marking machine parts.