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Adobe Illustrator for Laser Cutting

This tutorial will go over creating a file for the Laser Cutter. It will walk you through choosing an image, using image trace to convert it to vectors, and applying the appropriate settings for laser cutting.

This covers some basic Illustrator features, but it is not a comprehensive overview. For more in-depth information about Illustrator, please check out Adobe Illustrator Basic Skills.

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Introduction

Adobe Illustrator is vector-based software used to prepare files for the Laser Cutter. Vector-based images are one of two main types that are commonly found online, the other is Raster or Bitmap images.

The laser cutter can engrave raster images, but in order to cut out an image, we need a vector file.

Vector images are comprised of a series of lines, curves and points that are mathematically described as coordinates on a grid. They are typically small files which can be scaled without suffering a loss of clarity.

Raster images are made up of thousands of pixels that form a picture at a distance. When enlarged, the individual pixels become visible, making the image appear choppy and less defined.

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Step by Step Guide

Creating a File

• Open Adobe Illustrator and sign in using your school credentials. In the top right corner, select “New File.”
• Convert the units to inches or centimeters, then set the dimensions to match the bed size of the laser cutter you intend to use.
• Fimbel Lab has three laser cutters: Naga, Appa & Momo with the following bed sizes.
  • Naga- 48” x 36”
  • Appa - 40” x 28”
  • Momo- 32” x 20”

• In the right-hand panel, change your measurements to “Inches”

  • Set the Width & Height of your document to the size of the laser cutter bed you are using.
  • Select “Create.”

• Your file should look something like this.

  

Setting up your workspace

The main space in an Illustrator file is called the “Artboard”. To the left of the artboard, you will see a Tool Palette with tools for creating and modifying images. To the right of the artboard, you may see more detailed tool windows/tabs.

• To get your workspace set up, go to the “Windows” menu at the top of the screen, and open the following windows:
  • Properties
  • Image Trace
  • Stroke
• Next, use the shortcut keys “CTRL + R” (PC) or “⌘ + R ” (Mac) to make the ruler on the artboard visible.

Tracing the Image

• Select your image using the selection tool located in the tool bar to the left of the main window.

  

• Select the “window” menu at the top of the screen.

• Select “image trace” from the drop down menu. This will open an “image trace” dialog box.

  

• Select “preview” in the bottom right corner of the image trace dialog box.

• Select the dropdown arrow next to “advanced” and check the “ignore white” box. Choosing “ignore white” helps to prevent double lines in your file, which can be a fire hazard because the laser goes over the same path more than once.

• If you are using a very simple image, you may not see any difference between the traced image and your original. If this is the case, you can click the “Expand” button at the bottom of the image trace window, and your tracing is complete.

  

• Adjustments can be made to a traced image by changing the “Threshold” setting and moving the sliders in the “Advanced” section. By changing the percentages of Paths, Corners and Noise, you can increase or decrease the level of detail in an image. Once you are satisfied with the way your image looks, click”Expand” and close out of Image Trace. For more info on the advanced settings in “Image Trace,” take a look at these Illustrator articles;

  • Converting images to vector using Image Trace
  • Image Trace Presets

Making a Cut File

• After preparing your image, you will need to decide which parts you want to cut. As a general rule, the laser cutter will only cut vector lines that are a weight of .025 pt. Any lines greater than this will be engraved.

  Create a cut-line border

  If you are not creating a cut line around your shape, you will want to create a border to cut your shape out of the material.

  • Select a shape from the shape tool on the left side of the screen. Click on the artboard and then type in the dimensions you want the shape to be. The shape will appear on the artboard.

    

  • Click on the shape. If the shape has a fill, you can turn it off by selecting the solid square and then clicking the square with the red line through it. This will create a shape that is an outline with no fill.

    

  • With your shape selected, open the “Properties” window and change the stroke to .025.

  • Drag the shape over your image so the image is centered.

    

  • Your design is ready for the Laser Cutter!

Save your file to our shared drive “Cadet”

• If you are on a PC, go to the search bar in the bottom left of your screen, and type“\\cadet\” .
• If you are on a Mac, type ⌘ + K and in the window that opens type smb://cadet.mtholyoke.edu
• The username is “cadet” and password is “maryly0n”.
• Once you’ve connected to the drive, look for the “Student” folder and make a folder with your name on it. Save your file to the folder you created. </aside>

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Advanced

• Once you’ve connected to the drive, look for the “Student” folder and make a folder with your name on it. Save your file to the folder you created.
• The username is “cadet” and password is “maryly0n”.
• If you are on a Mac, type ⌘ + K and in the window that opens type smb://cadet.mtholyoke.edu
• If you are on a PC, go to the search bar in the bottom left of your screen, and type“\\cadet\” .

Save your file to our shared drive “Cadet”

• After preparing your image, you will need to decide which parts you want to cut. As a general rule, the laser cutter will only cut vector lines that are a weight of .025 pt. Any lines greater than this will be engraved.

  • For example, this image contains no .025 stroke lines, so the entire thing will be engraved.

  

  • If you wanted to cut the shape of the butterfly out, you would need to create an outline of the shape.

    • To do this, navigate to the “Window” menu and select “Layers”.
    • In the window that opens, click the “+” symbol in the bottom right hand corner, to create a new layer.

    

    • Next, select your already traced image and copy it into the new layer. You can hide the original layer by clicking the “eye” icon next to the layer.
    • Click into the new layer, and select your image.
    • Then, with the image selected, navigate to the two squares beneath the tools palette. You should see a very small white square (fill) and a black outlined square (stroke) there. Click on it to change your image to black outlines with white fill.
    • It will look like this.
    • Right-click on the image and choose “Ungroup”. If there are many layers, you may need to ungroup a few times to get all of the elements of the design to be independent pieces.
    • Now you can pull apart the layers. Select the outlined image and delete the rest.
    • With the image selected, open the “Properties” window and change the stroke “Weight” to .025 . The laser cutter will see this line as a “cut” line and the shape will be cut out. To create a file that is both engraved and cut, align the outline with the engraving image

  

  Create a cut-line border

  If you are not creating a cut line around your shape, you will want to create a border to cut your shape out of the material.

  • Select a shape from the shape tool on the left side of the screen. Click on the artboard and then type in the dimensions you want the shape to be. The shape will appear on the artboard.
  • Click on the shape. If the shape has a fill, you can turn it off by selecting the solid square and then clicking the square with the red line through it. This will create a shape that is an outline with no fill.
  • With your shape selected, open the “Properties” window and change the stroke to .025.
  • Drag the shape over your image so the image is centered.
  • Your design is ready for the Laser Cutter!

Making a Cut File

• Adjustments can be made to a traced image by changing the “Threshold” setting and moving the sliders in the “Advanced” section. By changing the percentages of Paths, Corners and Noise, you can increase or decrease the level of detail in an image. Once you are satisfied with the way your image looks, click”Expand” and close out of Image Trace. For more info on the advanced settings in “Image Trace,” take a look at these Illustrator articles;

• If you are using a very simple image, you may not see any difference between the traced image and your original. If this is the case, you can click the “Expand” button at the bottom of the image trace window, and your tracing is complete.

• Select the dropdown arrow next to “advanced” and check the “ignore white” box. Choosing “ignore white” helps to prevent double lines in your file, which can be a fire hazard because the laser goes over the same path more than once.

• Select “preview” in the bottom right corner of the image trace dialog box.

• Select “image trace” from the drop down menu. This will open an “image trace” dialog box.

• Select the “window” menu at the top of the screen.

• Select your image using the selection tool located in the tool bar to the left of the main window.

Tracing the Image

• Next we want to convert the image from a series of pixels, to an image based on vectors. Vectors are mathematically derived paths which are easily read by the laser cutter.
• Drag the image to the desktop of your computer, and then from the desktop drag it onto your artboard.

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