LightBurn Tutorial 23 – Connecting a Name to an Ornament Using Union Tool

The LightBurn Software Series

The Lightburn Software is probably the best generic laser cutting software available (I use it for almost all of my laser work). This series has tutorials, hints and tips as well as the occasional speed comparisons between it and RDWorks. In this LightBurn Tutorial Session, we learn all about using the Union tool and the correct steps to take for the operation to work every time. My thanks to the team at Lightburn for allowing me to embed their videos.

Contents

A common mistake people make is trying to “Weld” a name to an ornament, causing the name to disappear. In this quick clip, is an explanation on how to use Boolean Union to do this, and show why weld (or union) can fail if the setup isn’t right.

How to Use the LightBurn Union Tool

Video Resource Files for How to Use the LightBurn Union Tool

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The boolean tools — The Boolean Tools

External Resource Links for How to Use the LightBurn Union Tool

https://lightburnsoftware.com/pages/trial-version-try-before-you-buy

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If you enjoyed this series of Lightburn Software Tutorials. Why not try out one of our other video series such as:

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Lightburn union tool example — Lightburn Union Tool Example

Transcript for How to Use the LightBurn Union Tool

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0:00 i’m going to do a quick recap of how to

0:03 use the boolean union feature in

0:05 lightburn because this seems to be a

0:07 significant stumbling block for people

0:09 so i have an ornament

0:12 and i have a name

0:14 now

0:15 in order to use boolean union

0:18 you have to have two objects

0:21 okay and in this case i have this object

0:23 and this is a group and i have this

0:25 object and this is also a group it is

0:28 important that they are

0:30 grouped together like this or it won’t

0:32 work

0:33 so i have this name and it’s touching

0:36 the inside edge of this ornament shape i

0:38 select the ornament and shift select the

0:40 name in this case it doesn’t really

0:42 matter what order i could just drag

0:44 select them and then use boolean union

0:47 and that will create a union of those

0:48 two shapes so that now the name is fused

0:51 in with the ornament

0:54 what people

0:55 most often do instead is they click weld

0:59 and that is this button and their text

1:01 disappears and the reason it does that

1:04 is because

1:05 weld

1:06 doesn’t really look at

1:08 this group

1:10 and this group as two separate things

1:12 it’s just kind of looking at all of the

1:13 shapes that you gave it so it’s more

1:16 like this one over here

1:18 where this is not a group it’s just this

1:20 circle and this circle and this name

1:24 now if i take this inner ring

1:27 and this text and i try to boolean union

1:30 just this inside circle with the text

1:33 the union of them throws the text away

1:36 that’s not technically what’s happening

1:39 what it’s actually doing is it’s

1:40 creating the union

1:42 of the two things that i fed it

1:45 which are this circle and that text and

1:48 if i say union those you can see that

1:51 it’s keeping the overlap

1:54 of both so the text

1:57 and that circle and where they overlap

1:59 it keeps or sorry where wherever either

Transcript for How to Use the LightBurn Union Tool (Cont…)

2:02 one exists

2:04 it

2:06 keeps it

2:08 and so

2:11 that’s basically what happens if you try

2:13 to weld

2:16 this shape

2:17 with this

2:19 uh with this ornament is lightburn says

2:21 oh well they’re really only touching

2:23 here so these are probably the ones that

2:25 you want

2:26 and it does the equivalent of a union

2:29 there which is not what you were

2:31 intending so

2:33 if you grab

2:34 the whole ornament make sure that it’s a

2:36 group make sure that all the shapes are

2:38 closed

2:39 and the name

2:41 select both

2:42 and union that

2:44 that will work

2:46 as an alternative

2:48 you can actually subtract

2:50 this shape from just this shape and if

2:53 you do that if i say take this shape and

2:57 subtract this shape

2:59 using the boolean difference tool

3:01 it will also work because it’s now cut

3:04 the text out of that inside ring which

3:07 is very much the same as

3:10 if you

3:11 union the text with the entire ring

3:15 hopefully that makes sense

What Next?

Did you enjoy this post? Why not check out some of our other posts:

How To Laser Engrave Slate

How To Laser Cut Stencils

What Can A Laser Cutter Cut?

How To Laser Cut And Engrave Acrylic

Concise RDWorks Learning Lab – Video Tutorial Series

How To Laser Cut Foam Inserts For Tool Boxes

How To Laser Cut Paper Without Burning

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Last updated April 25, 2024

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