Designing SVG images

Sketching the images

By tracing an existing image

I have used the three following images to sketch the SVG image.

rav4lizard

By using Gimp image editor, I traced the outer part of the images by using the fuzzy select tool and saved them as jpg. Then I imported them into inkscape and used "trace bitmap" tool in order to change the images to vector, and saved the images as svg. The figures below show the result after tracing.

rav4lizard

By sketching the image manually

For my final sketch, I wanted to draw something on my own. The first step into doing so was to draw the image that I have in mind (which is a spartan helmet) on a piece of paper.

helmet sketch

After I was done drawing the helmet, I have tried to imitate the sketch the best I could onto inkscape. The final result is shown below.

helmet inkscape




Vinyl cutting the 2D images


Communicating with the Vinyl cutter in Ubuntu

The vinyl cutter used in the lab is SILHOUETTE CAMEO, which prints through communication via usb. There are several methods that can be used to communicate with the printer. The method that I chose was by using an extension in Inkscape, and the steps that were followed were found in the following website: http://www.instructables.com/id/Inkscape-Silhouette-UbuntuRPi/

Driver interface

After installing the driver extension software, it can be navigated through the inkscape window->Extensions->Export->Send to Silhouette. Through the driver interface, I have mainly changed the x and y offset coordinates (whenever I wanted to print twice or more on the same paper), the media and the number of repititions on each stroke. The driver contains preset values for speed and blade pressure for different types of materials.

vinyl interface


Test result (on paper)

For starters, I tried cutting my car design on an A4 paper using the "Print Paper Light Weight" settings, and it worked perfectly as shown below.

rav4


Vinyl cutting results

For vinyl cutting, in the first try I have used the default settings for Vinyl sticker (speed=10 pressure=10), but it did not work well as the blade was not completely cutting through the sicker. So, I have increaesed the pressure of the blade to 11 and the result was that the sticker separates easily without tearing.

helm final

lizard final




.a