I give up!!!!

[Doc Mark]

OK, I give up! For weeks now, I've tried to emulate the beautiful vector drawings that several people have posted of their purposed scroll designs. (You know who you are!) I even went out and bought the newest version of Corel Draw because the Trace Function was supposed to be improved. I have read the huge manual and still have only the novice's concept of how to manipulate nodes etc.

Here's what I would like to do if possible, please tell me if I'm all wet! I draw the design a minimum of twice the proposed size. I then trace it onto tracing paper and ink it with the finest tip 005 ceramic tip marker. This is run through the scanner and into Corel Draw. I change it to a bitmap and run the Trace Function. I've tried the "Centerline Trace" and move the sliders into every conceivable combination possible, and it always looks like a Picasso rendering of the scrolls! So then I try "Outline Trace" and can get a semblance of the design but it is ROUGH and wherever two lines come close together, then the program tries to "fill" the space with BLACK! If I try any of the sliders to "smooth" the design the edge accuracy is shot to hell. Next, I can't figure out how to convert the vectorized drawing into the "hairline" drawings that I can create if I draw directly with the various drawing media within the program. I don't want to try and draw the total design in Corel alone. I want to convert my existing drawings into hairline vector drawings with enough accuracy that I can print them onto my transparencies and transfer them directly to the metal. Where am I going wrong?

Please HELP,

Mark

 

[Mike Cirelli]

Mark I guessing it looks like a scaned in pencil drawing and you would like it darker with crisp edges to print.
First I would cut the drawing out removing all the unwanted background. I'm not familliar with Corel so I can't tell you where anything is. Then I would use the paint bucket to make it darker with maybe a black overlay adjusting the oposity. Then go in and clean up the edges with the eraser tool then lightly go over the edges with the blur tool. This is something that I might do in Paintshop, it may not work for you.

 

[Andrew Biggs]

Hi Mark

You are expecting a bit much from the program. The simple answer to what you are asking is..............No you can't do that....................but yes, you can in a limited form. What you have described is exactly how I do my transfers.

No, you can't do that...............means you can't get those beautiful hairline drawings as if you had drawn them in initially.

Yes, you can.................when you "trace" the design it will be all pixilated when magnified. However when it's printed a lot of that pixilated edges disappear as the printer can't print that fine, so it sort of self smoothes.

There is a direct correlation between your pen thickness and what you end up with. The thicker the pen the thicker the line..........the thinner the pen, the thinner the line. You may have to buy a .25mm nib for your pen.

Make your settings.............. detail set to maximum.............smoothing to zero

This should give you a transfer that is perfectly acceptable to engrave.

Let me know if you need any further help

Cheers
Andrew

 

[kcrutche]

Mark

Post a picture of your drawing with explanation of exactly what you are trying to do.

There are many members using Corel that will be glad to offer assistance.

I have a Step by Step Coreldraw tutorial on the Lindsay Forum (Vector Drawing With Coreldraw) that might help.

Ken

 

[Andrew Biggs]

One thing I forgot to mention

1. Scan your tracings in at 300 dpi or higher

2. In the Corel trace dialouge box make sure the setting is in black and white...........so it is only two colour.

3. In the same dialouge box remove the white background.

OK, that was 3 things I forgot to mention.

If it's of any help to you I can post a screenshot of my settings if that would be of any help.


Cheers
Andrew

 

[monk]

the way i do it: do my dwg maybe 3x in pencil ( no bleeding that way ), and scan into corel. reduce a bit and send to the printer and check for quality. if it looks good, i re-scan, and print again. if the quality is then ok, i use the 2nd scan resident in corel as the basis for what i want to do. remember, you're not scanning an entire dwg. just your basic spines within the predefined shape of you intended object.i do this in some kind of "enhanced" mode, and mine turn out in useable fashion- that is if my dwg was good !

 

[Arnaud Van Tilburgh]

How I do it:

I draw with a pencil, and even when the lines are not that fine, I scan it and open the jpg in Illustrator. I think Corel Draw is similar.
There I lock the scanned layer and ad a new layer.
On that new layer I draw vector lines, in Illustrator there are different tools to draw these vector lines and I you can draw them at real size as there is the magnification tool on the computer. The thickness of the vector lines I use are 0,25mm

Here is an printscreen of how it looks

arnaud

 

[KCSteve]

And I just go with the quick & dirty, draw at double size, scan at fairly high res (I think I use 600 but I'm not at that computer to check), and scale down to fit.

Scaling it down makes the lines thinner - well, it keeps the same proportions of line size to open space as your original drawing so if it fits, it fits.

I do scan in B&W to get a cleaner final product.

Playing with InkScape now so if I ever figure it out I will probably to turn my drawings into vector versions - that way I can scale them cleanly for other projects.

 

[monk]

hmmm! arnaud: i think you have given me a major idea here ! thank you

 

[vanknife]

Good day to all,
I use Micro soft office Visio It is very user friendly and one can save as Scalable vector image etc.

Cheers

"VAN"

 

[Leonardo]

Overworking.

Hi Mark!

I am warming up this thread again because Andrew (as always) hit the point in the other thread and said what is really the daily job. That explanation really make sense!

You do not need overworking the design in the computer because you do not need that detailed vectors for your hand engraving purpose.

I am attaching here the work that I did to engrave that shotgun receiver with the machine. I spent almost 12 hours on it. This kind of job only worth the time involved in the case that you want to reproduce the job many times. It is the kind of jobs for a machine and this vector drawing works as a CNC program.

A - This is the Jordi original design in paper.
B - This is the traced design.
C - This is the job ready for the machine.

I am not saying that you do not need to learn how to draw digitally. It is a great tool and you always will find very rewarding your achievements in this field. I am only talking about finding the best balance for each situation.

Kind regards, Leonardo.

 

[Marcus Hunt]

Any chance we can see the results of your machine cut receiver Leonardo? Sam showed me a plate you'd engraved with your machine and I was amazed by it. Does it only engrave flat surfaces though?

 

[Leonardo]

Hi Marcus,
Thank you for your comment on the machine engraving and yes, of course, I am uploading those pictures again.
Today the machine is only engraving on flat surfaces but it will be able to engrave on other surfaces in the near future.
All the best, Leonardo.

 

[KCSteve]

Looking great Leonardo! :thumbs up:

Boy I hope at least one gun maker picks up your system - if people start seeing guns like that they'll not only see how much better real engraving looks than the current laser cut / rolled stuff, they'll start wanting more custom engraving.

 

[Marcus Hunt]

I have to agree with Steve's comments. It looks 100X better than the rolled/laser cut that passes as engraving. Thanks for showing us your results.