0:01 Today we’re going to demo the new
0:04 Boolean features in LightBurn and talk about
0:07 the new union feature new subtract and
0:11 new intersect and describe a little bit
0:15 about why Union is different than weld.
0:17So what is a Boolean? A Boolean operation
0:21 is something you do between two shapes
0:25 to produce an interesting result so for
0:28 example everyone who’s used lightburn
0:30 is probably already familiar with weld
0:32 we’ve changed the icon to show the
0:35 difference between weld and union they
0:38 are very similar and they use them for
0:40 similar things but there are a few
0:41 critical differences that we’ll cover so
0:44 first of all well keeps the outline of
0:48 existing shapes now one of the nice
0:51 things about weld is that you can use it
0:53 for many shapes for example if I copy
0:57 and paste this circle a lot select all
1:01 of these shapes and hit the weld button
1:04 I keep the outline of the entire thing
1:06 now that’s fantastic and it’s very
1:10 useful however something that a lot of
1:13 people try to do and fail at and now let
1:16 me import this piece of art is something
1:20 like this so this is a pretty common
1:23 thing people want to make design with a
1:25 name embedded in it and it’s a very
1:28 common operation to try to weld the text
1:31 with the outline and now the problem
1:34 with this is it fails if I select all of
1:36 these and weld them you end up with this
1:39 and here’s why this is what we call an
1:43 ambiguity so weld doesn’t know whether
1:47 you intend to weld this shape with this
1:51 shape or whether you intend to weld this
1:59 shape with this shape and that’s the
2:02 problem because you have three
2:04 disconnected items here and you haven’t
2:08 specified that these two belong together
2:10 and not these two weld
2:15 I used to do the smart thing and it
2:17 doesn’t always work it basically tries
2:19 to sort things depending on whether they
2:22 are considered inside or outside each
2:24 other and what ends up happening is
2:26 because this shape is slightly outside
2:29 of this one it gets kept and this one
2:35 gets pulled out so essentially this
2:36 shape gets pulled out because this one
2:38 overlaps this one and then these two get
2:41 capped and this one gets kept separately
2:43 and you can see that if you tried to
2:46 keep this and then put this as an
2:49 outline over top of this you would erase
2:54 those letters and we get the result that
2:55 we saw now if there was a way that you
2:59 could tell the weld feature that these
3:01 two shapes belong together and you
3:05 wanted them welded with this you get
3:08 something like this instead and this is
3:10 what everybody’s been after and hasn’t
3:13 been able to achieve yet but again with
3:15 the new union feature Union and all of
3:18 the other bully ins that we’ve got
3:20 including subtraction and intersection
3:22 work on only two objects at a time and
3:25 the key is that those objects can be
3:28 groups so in this example what we
3:32 started with was three individual
3:34 objects and that is these two ovals and
3:38 this text by grouping the two ovals
3:42 together to make them a single object
3:47 we’ve told the Boolean system this is
3:50 one item and this is the other item if
3:54 you select the two and you use the Union
3:56 feature now you get the result that
3:59 you’re looking for weld is still useful
4:02 because it will do multiple overlapping
4:05 shapes at one time whereas the Boolean
4:09 operations can only do two shapes at one
4:12 time there is a reason for that the
4:15 biggest reason is when using subtract
4:18 you need to say I want to subtract one
4:22 object from another object and the order
4:24 is important so for example I can say I
4:27 want this
4:28 object with this one subtracted from it
4:31 and I get that and that is a different
4:35 result than if I say I want this object
4:38 with this one subtracted from it I get
4:41 that result and then intersection the
4:45 order matters less but intersection
4:47 keeps the overlapping area of two shapes
4:49 and so you can see here this overlap
4:51 between these two is what intersection
4:54 keeps and that one is likely the least
5:01 useful of them although it does still
5:04 have its uses intersection is still
5:06 pretty handy in a few cases but I feel
5:08 like weld and suppressor a union and
5:11 subtract are going to be the ones that
5:13 most people want so a better example of
5:17 what you would use subtract for first
5:21 example if you are trying to create text
5:25 with a stencil so let’s do this is an
5:31 outline I’m going to draw draw some
5:37 script it to text make it larger so if I
5:47 was trying to create a stencil to paint
5:51 something with if I cut this out the S
5:56 is a single entity these letters here
5:59 are all single entities but when we get
6:01 over here is P has a small island in the
6:04 middle of it as does the E and the D
6:06 those small islands will fall out of our
6:11 stencil these pieces will not be kept so
6:14 if I scan this you can see this black
6:16 area is my stencil and if I was to try
6:19 and paint through these openings in the
6:22 stencil all of this would work
6:24 wonderfully except here and here and
6:27 here these items will fall out so the
6:31 way you fixed that is by making small
6:34 cuts very much like a typical stencil
6:37 font now in lightburn you can do that
6:39 by creating small sliver
6:42 boxes rotating them a little bit if you
6:45 need to I’ll place this here and then I
6:50 can say I want to take this and subtract
6:52 this use the subtraction operation and
6:55 now I have a little connection between
6:57 those two if you were to beat that for
6:59 the E and the D you now have a
7:02 connection between those two and it
7:05 works much better as a stencil so that’s
7:07 one very good example another is
7:11 something that recently came up on the
7:14 forums so I’m going to bring in a
7:17 different piece of art so first of all
7:20 the user wanted to create a pattern
7:22 background now with the grid feature we
7:27 can do this fairly rapidly so I’m going
7:30 to create a couple of hexagons that are
7:35 spaced apart for 50 switch the
7:44 y-direction and create some rows shift
7:48 these so they are 25 offset pack things
7:53 up a little tighter so now I’ve made my
7:57 spacing between hexagons basically even
8:00 to reduce that by one and increase this
8:04 so I get a nice pattern square so I now
8:08 have a pattern of hexagons I scan that I
8:11 get this if I put an outline around this
8:15 will actually make it an interesting
8:17 outline using the offset that’s in color
8:23 I get this so this is the kind of
8:26 pattern that I want this looks great
8:29 actually I’m going to make this just a
8:32 little bit different that just a
8:34 slightly larger so now I want to draw a
8:44 shape on top of this so I’m going to
8:46 import the lightburn dragon
8:53 [Music]
8:55 this little larger now if all of these
9:02 were on the same liquor and I preview I
9:06 get a jumbled mess because the way that
9:09 lightburn does its scanning is it
9:12 alternates between off and on as it
9:15 passes every single boundary and so
9:18 because these are all on the same layer
9:20 as it crosses across these hexagons and
9:22 into the lightburn dragon shape you end
9:24 up with this strange toggled inverting
9:29 effect not what I want so if I make
9:32 these so that they are on their own
9:34 layer now they will be scanned
9:36 independently but this is still not what
9:39 I’m looking for what’s actually going to
9:41 happen is it’s going to draw the dragon
9:44 and then draw all of those hexagons and
9:46 so I’m going to get double burn in these
9:48 areas and it’s also still not very good
9:51 not very visible so here’s what you
9:55 would use subtract 4 I’m going to create
9:58 an outline using the offset tool snug it
10:02 up fairly close to the dragon shape and
10:07 then with that outline I’m going to
10:11 select the hexagon grid then select the
10:15 outline and say I want to subtract the
10:18 outline from the grid now everywhere
10:22 that that dragon exists and a slight
10:25 offset from it you can see that the
10:28 hexagon grid has been removed so if I
10:30 preview this I get a very nice isolated
10:33 design in the middle with no overburn
10:36 and so these two things are in fact now
10:39 separate and if I put them on the same
10:42 layer so that they scan at the same time
10:44 they are still separate there’s no
10:46 double burn here so you get a nice clean
10:51 isolated design it helps with cleaning
10:56 up pretty much any background now this
10:57 only works for vector shapes but still
11:01 very useful and if you have an image
11:02 that you are trying to engrave and
11:06 isolate
11:07 there is a chance that you could use the
11:08 trace feature to turn the image into
11:11 vectors and these Boolean operations
11:14 will still work on fairly complicated
11:16 shapes including a traced image so there
11:20 you go the quick walkthrough of the new
11:23 weld Union subtract and intersection
11:28 features in my part thanks for watching
