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Welcome to another Lightblade learning lab
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if you cast your mind back to the
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previous session and we made a little
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box, i promised you then that we would make a
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slightly different version of a gift box
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and what I plan to do is to show you the
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creative or perhaps it’s the non-creative
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process that i go through to make one of
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these boxes my artistic creative skills
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are pretty close to zero so i have to
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rely on borrowing other people’s skills
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to make my designs and i’m going to show
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you that process today and along the way
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I should be showing you how we’re going
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to convert a bitmap file into a vector
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file so that it can be cut on here as
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opposed to engraved. Well to show you how
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i go about producing some of my designs
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as i mentioned to you i’m no artist so I
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have to go and look for other people’s
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artistic talent and bolt things together
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that i can find on the interweb but
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today we’re going to start off by
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hunting for a butterfly to use in this
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project now it’s not a real butterfly, what
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I want to find and i’m going to put this in
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a search for butterfly graphics
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that’s always a good term to use
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“graphics” because it will get you to
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pictures like this and then we’ve got
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images of butterfly graphics now i can
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already see one there that i think is
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quite nice
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we are eventually going to have to make
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this black-and-white so we could either
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choose something like this one
Transcript for how to convert a bitmap to a vector file (Cont…)
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I mean they are loads to choose from as
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you can see and we’ve got a nice clear
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picture there and we will now do a
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screen grab of it so we should just do a…..
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and then we should go to photoshop now
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you may not have photoshop you may have
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something else
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photoshop is something that I prefer and
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i use but i’m going to show you how I do
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it and then you can adapt this method to
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suit your your software. We’re trying to
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convert this now into a DXF file which
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basically is a vector format file what
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we have here at the moment is a bitmap
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file with all sorts of shades and colors
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in it but what we are trying to do is to get a
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skeletal drawing that we can cut rather
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than engrave and to do that what I’m
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going to do is go to image adjustments
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and down at the bottom I’ve got
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something called Posterise, now i can set
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the posterised levels to different
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levels and really where after
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black-and-white and if black-and-white is
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what we’re after
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then we’re after only two levels and
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there we are, we’ve got rid of the shadow
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around the outside and we’ve got the
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basic shape still the only problem is we
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still got some yellow in this and colour
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so we can get rid of that as well by
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going somewhere else
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ok now we can go to image we can go to
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mode then we can go to grayscale, discard
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the colour information. In two simple steps
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we’ve got ourselves a nice black and
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white image crisp black and white image
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now we need to save that…. PNG is a good
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format
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ok now I’m going to go and work in Adobe
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Illustrator so we will open this PNG
Transcript for how to convert a bitmap to a vector file (Cont…)
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here
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and we’ll use the object trace
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live trace make
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and then we’ll do edit sorry object
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again live trace
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and the option that we want is show the
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tracing results show outlines
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and there we go so we know we’ve got the
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outlines i can either take it as an
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autocad drawing which I can deal with or
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we can do
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dxf file we’ll try the dxf file and now
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we’re going to my cad program butterfly
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dxf and there we go we’ve got the
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butterfly dxf now as a CAD file
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Now the only problem is the chances are that
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if we look at this closely we shall
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probably find that there are two lines
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we find a corner somewhere we might find
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it there are two tracings here look can
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you see that we’ve got a tracing of the
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black outline and a tracing of the white
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outline that’s one of the problems with
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doing a tracing so we’ve got two lots of
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data there overlapped on top of each
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other and so first of all we convert
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this from splines as they call them, which
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is that Brown shape and convert to lines and arcs //
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lines and circles lines and arcs
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that’s all we’ve got to play with and so
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that’s how this drawing will get
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converted even though it looks like all
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sorts of funny shapes it will get
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converted into just those two features
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delete the original ok
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there we go, that’s turned nice and green
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which tells me it’s now been converted
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into something called geometry what
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we’re really interested in is a
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butterfly
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we’re not interested in a wonky
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butterfly so what we should do as we
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will draw a line approximately through
Transcript for how to convert a bitmap to a vector file (Cont…)
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the middle of this butterfly here like
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that
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and then we’ll see how far off of
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vertical it is by drawing a vertical
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line F6, no F3 sorry and then we’ll go up
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here will measure the angle
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and the angle between that line and that
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line is 3.618 so we can pick up this
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whole drawing and rotate it, rotate
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about any point 3.618 enter, enter and
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there we go we’ve now got a butterfly
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that’s vertical now we can choose either
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half for our master and i’ll tell you what
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we should do
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we’ll just delete that because we don’t need it any
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more, we’ll delete that because we
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don’t need it anymore and this piece
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here
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well this is quite important because
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what we’re going to do now, is there’s a feature here
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called trim, trim
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trim
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and now everything else are separate
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features and so now i should be able to do
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delete just come in here like this and delete them
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and there we go so now we’ve got half a
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butterfly we’re gonna finish up with a
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whole butterfly but what we’re going to
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do is we are going to have to think about this
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because some of this stuff is going to
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be very delicate between these wings by
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the time, by the time we cut these
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out so what we need to do is to rework
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this, I mean for instance here look we’ve
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got a join here we can’t have that what we
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can do we can put an offset in and let’s
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just see what we’ve got
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offset of, we’ll offset geometry and we’ll
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offset it by just say one millimeter and
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see how much that is
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yeah that looks quite nice
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maybe we can just do it the simple way
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like this
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we’ll offset all of these by one mill
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bear in mind as I said to you there are double
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shapes on here so i have to delete them
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twice
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ok now the gaps between those shapes now
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are probably more realistic so I’ll go around and
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take all the double images off
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right, so there’s our basic butterfly, well there it’s a
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bit um, it’s a little bit tight just here isn’t it
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it’s getting close to this, this gap here
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is going to be very small so i think
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what we might do is just change that
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slightly, we’ll delete that and then we will
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just put this tangent to line or arc on
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here and we join it onto the end of there
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like that
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there we go that’s better right, so now
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we’ve got a much stronger antenna and we
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might need the body stretched a little
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bit so what I might do is to
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put something like a two-millimeter
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offset on this to start with so we’ll
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put two millimeter offset on here like
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that
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we’ll delete this, basically what we’ve done is we’ve
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changed the centre line and we’re gonna make
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this moth, we’re going to make this
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butterfly fatter nobody will notice that
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so now we shall mirror
Transcript for how to convert a bitmap to a vector file (Cont…)
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this
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keep the original
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and then we will do an
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extend
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to that line, like that
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and then we’ll do one of these tangent to arc
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things
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from here
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to here well there’s our beautiful vector
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butterfly now courtesy of some no skill
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on my part so that’s part one of this
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project and it’s taken, taken the best part of ah….
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three-quarters of an hour to do that so
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we’ve got our basic graphic idea we’ve
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got a butterfly now I want to try and
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find a little box or I want to find
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inspiration from somewhere for a box
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design so I’m going to nick somebody
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else’s idea now, let’s go and have a look
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at wedding favor boxes, here we go… images
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this is what we want
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I’m just looking for something that’s a
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little bit different, oh look
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there’s an interesting box
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could have done something like that
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couldn’t I
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now I see something like this and think
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triangular, oh look that’s an interesting
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one as well I saw something here look
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these boxes here it’s not what I want
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but I’ve just seen something in my mind
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that that I can see working so okay
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you’ve seen me pinch a butterfly you’ve
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seen me pinch a basic idea for a box
Transcript for how to convert a bitmap to a vector file (Cont…)
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this is the way that I go about my
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cardboard engineering so I should go
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back to my cad system now and I’m not
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going to drag you through the pain of
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design so i’ll present you with my
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design when it’s finished now this is
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the paper that i tend to use for my
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cards and for most of my cardboard
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engineering it’s it’s a nice white art
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paper i’ll take the red stuff out
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because that’s something slightly
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different but this is a hundred sheets
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which come in a pad and it’s basically a
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watercolor paper as you can see but it’s
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200 grams and it’s got a very nice sort
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of a texture to it now what I’ve got to
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do is take a quick look at my pin bed
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underneath here because we need to make
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sure we’ve got support down the middle
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we will just check we’ve got our focus set to
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6.5
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we need air but not too much of it
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you can see that some of the detail on
Transcript for how to convert a bitmap to a vector file (Cont…)
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here there’s a little bit on the
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delicate side
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ok let’s see what the end result is
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going to be like shall we?
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so that’s the outside so we need to
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tuck these little tabs down
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we need to fold these back
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and that’s in essence what the box is
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about
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but what I got to do now is if we look
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carefully you’ll see that I’ve left a
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little slot at the bottom here and a
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little slot at the top there so we’ve
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got to do is very carefully engage these
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two butterflies together like that
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so they sit neatly on the corner
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crossed over like that look just like a
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little butterfly sitting there on the
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corner and they hold the edges of the
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box together so we’ve got to do that for
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all four corners carefully
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folding to each other like this
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there we go
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and then
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we’re going to put this pair across the top here
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we’re going to engage those two little teeth
Transcript for how to convert a bitmap to a vector file (Cont…)
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like that
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and then we can do the same thing with
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these two butterflies but the opposite
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so we’re going to have to pull these very gently
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apart to get them past each other
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and there we go we’ve got a very delicate
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little gift box
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something any young lady would be very
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pleased to receive that especially if it’s
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got diamond rings or diamond earrings or
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an airline ticket to New York or
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the possibilities are endless
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there is one other possibility for this
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which if you’re in business rather than
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trying to impress your young lady
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you could quite easily cut or etch names on
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these
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and these could be wedding favors and
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place positions, seating positions both
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at the same time
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so maybe there’s some business there for
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somebody this design will be available
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from the Thinklaser website the same
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as the other boxes will be as well so
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feel free to use it
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adapt it, modify it, well I hope that i’ve
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demonstrated that there’s a lot of
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potential in cardboard engineering
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both to enjoy yourself and maybe to make
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some money as well
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so what I can say to you is thank you
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very much for your patience
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we shall return to cardboard engineering
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later on in the series when we’re
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probably do some birthday cards
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Christmas cards Easter cards depends on
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the time of the year but for now thank
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you very much for your time and I shall
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see you in the next session
