BEST DRAWING SOFTWARE FOR LASER CUTTERS
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- Опубліковано 9 лип 2024
- What is the best drawing software for laser cutters? Should you use software like Lightburn or Retina Engrave 3 that shipped with your laser? Or should you opt for a more comprehensive vector drawing tool like Inkscape or Adobe Illustrator. If you are working with 3D models, should you scale up to a full 3D CAD tool like Fusion 360?
Knowing which tool use and when to use it can be a bit intimidating and in this video I want to provide you with a bit of insight to help answer the many questions you will have when starting your journey with a laser cutter/engraver.
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►►►► VIDEO CONTENTS
0:00 Introduction
2:10 Embedded Laser Drawing Tools
8:25 Vector Drawing Tools
12:50 3D CAD Tools
18:20 Final Tips
►►►► MY MAKER SPACE
Laser/Vinyl Cutters
Full Spectrum Laser Muse 3D
Circuit Maker 3: amzn.to/3hEsjC5
3D Printers
Sliced-Pi ]|[ CoreXY (self-designed)
Sliced-Pi ][ CoreXY - self-designed
Prusa I3Mk3 with MMU 2
Creality CR-10 (massively upgraded)
Creality Ender 3 V2 (New!) amzn.to/34wuUeg
AnyCubic Photon S SLA Resin Printer amzn.to/3wtSVvo
CNC Router
Genmitsu 3018 Pro amzn.to/3vgAeLb
►►►► SOFTWARE I USE
DaVinci Resolve 17 www.blackmagicdesign.com
Autocad Fusion 360 www.autodesk.com/products/fus...
Inkscape inkscape.org
Gimp gimp.org
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Your videos have certainly helped me! Many thanks Steve.
Glad to help
Fantastic video! Thank you for sharing this info! :)
My pleasure!
I already use MoI3D for CAD modeling. I actually found it was the easiest tool for vector drawings, which can be imported right into Lightburn.
In the end, whatever tool works for you is the one you should use. I’m rarely limited to one. When I need accurate dimensions I start designing in Fusion360, then export drawings to SVG to make final tweaks in Inkscape so I can drop them into Lightburn or RE3, where I will also make final adjustments sometimes.
Build your own tool workflow and you will be happiest.
Thank you for this!
My pleasure!
Very helpful! Thank you!!
You're welcome!
Very helpful - I am a 360 user and couldn't grasp how to draw for engraving. One thing missing from the video is how to go from an svg file to layers that are cut vs engrave, e.g. the circle around the rotated rectangles would be a cut operation.
All of the layering is done in Lightburn, and after you load the SVG file, all you need to do is ungroup it and then select the objects that you want in each Lightburn layer.
@@SteveMakesEverything Thanks!!
Thank you so much for sharing, it's great、❤
You're very welcome
You stated in the beginning that you started doing videos to help people. For me, you have done just that! I have learned a great deal from you over the past month or so. Thank you! I just took delivery of my MUSE 3D and I have a quick question. Do i have to be sitting right next to the machine to use the RE3 software? I would like to design in my office then head to the workshop. Thank you in advance for the help.
You are so welcome. Regarding your question: If you connect your laser to WiFi then you can sit anywhere with your laptop and connect over Wifi on the same network. Just open a browser and connect to "fsl.local"
good review and video.
Coming from miniminal cad background this helps me a lot to decide if practical to use cad software.
Glad it was helpful! FWIW I mostly use Fusion 360 for customer project work
I was fortunate to have been an adobe illustrator user since 1989, so when I saw I could use that to draw and save as pdf or svg to send to my laser I was ecstatic. If I were starting again now, I would probably choose affinity designer which has about 90% of Illustrators features but at a low single time fee instead of a subscription.
I used to love all of the Adobe tools but since they changed their sales model to subscriptions I’ve kind of gotten away from it.
After you get the SVG file (from illustrator) do you need any other software before sending it to the machine? If so, what do you use?
This is exactly why I spend so much time explaining that no one software is all you need. Developy your workflow independent of the laser software. The features built into most are nice but can limit creativity. I have seen too many people struggling to design stuff in RE3/Lightburn when they could be done faster and with more control just by switching to a decent drawing package.
I definitely agree. Lightburn is better than most, but there’s no substitute for a solid design tool.
What do you recommend for your software workflow ?
@@ValientCraft Look for decent free tools if you are on a budget. Inkscape is great and there is also a free version os Fusion 360, but the are many others. As long as you can generate an SVG file, or some other format that your laser supports, you are good.
Helpful video thanks. On Fusion 360 if you draw your 50mm x 50mm square using the origin (or another point) as its centre and then just do a circular pattern around that point it gives you the shape you need.
Yes, though you would still struggle to get the image exported. You’d be forced to export as DXF, which isn’t as simple as something like an SVG file. The point I wanted to make is that CAD tools, while very powerful for 3D modelling, aren’t very effective drawing tools.
@@SteveMakesEverything appreciate your reply Steve. Will definitely be trying Inkscape on your recommendation. I haven’t tried it yet but Shaper Origin provide a free add in for Fusion 360 that exports a sketch in the SVG format. Might be of help. Best. Mark
@@markscheiner3952 Yes I use Shaper Origin and it works very well to get 3D parts converted into SVGs. I covered it in a video about a month ago focused on improving laser designs.
thank you..
You can also add Kittl to this list. I’ve switched to this for a lot of work now.
This can easily be done in Fusion 360 by making a 50mm x 50mm box. Then put a 0.001mm circle in the center. Then do a circular pattern and choose the number of squares and select the center point and click apply. You can then select the drawing in the sketch tree then right click it and choose export as dxf. All done.
Yes, there are many ways to achieve the same goal. I really need to find time to put a couple of really basic tutorials together for Fusion 360 and maybe FreeCad so users can go beyond some of the basic limitations of basic drawing tools. Makers don't necessarily need to understand all of the power of F360 to get benefits, but I think if Makers got over some of the initial hurtles, they would find capabilities like sketches built with dimensions and constraints would make their designs so much easier.
Thanks for this great video. I have one question for you. I am looking to buy 60w Chinese C02 laser, and I want to use K40 Whisperer and with it I can use only SVG and DXF files, there is a lot of free CDR files online which I like, do you have some advice how to use them or convert them to SVG vectors files? Thanks one more time!
Inkscape or Corel Draw can convert them
Have you tried printing to R3? I use the print command from Inkscape to print directly to the R3 print driver (FSL PS24). I've never done it any other way.
I’m not sure the FSL driver is supported by the Muse, but regardless I have not used it. I’ve pretty much moved everything to Lightburn for my business and my Muse is mostly for rotary work
From what I understand, and believe me I could be wrong, but I am unable to use Light burn with a FSL product. Is this correct?@@SteveMakesEverything
My personal favorite would be to use Autodesk Fusion 360 for exporting a DXF followed by importing them into LightBurn 😁
Granted I'm still new to LightBurn but yeaa... So far, I can't really see myself ever using it by its own to do designs.
Also concerning the F360 way of doing it... All you had to do was select the Square, start the Circular Array Tool, select the Dot in the Square's Center as the Axis and type in like 7 for the array - Done and thus literally the fastest of them all to this point 😏 ( I'd be uploading a Video of it but Windows Capture does a terrible Job with F360 and Autodesk Screencast was apparently retired )
Yep. This will work and is easy for anyone who lives in F360. It most people on this channel don’t use a tool more complicated than a simple drawing program so rotating a shape around a circle is more than most will grasp in a second or two
Can you changed from R3 to light burn I hate the R3 program
You would need a pretty extensive upgrade to a Lightburn compatible controller. I’ve been considering this project for my own Muse 3D
Hi do you know any Android application to draw and work images for laser engraver and export in png svg, etc, thanks
Sorry, I don't. But we are a community here so hopefully someone else can answer this.
@@SteveMakesEverything the only one i know is infinite design, we can unify the paths to make it only one path, for example, putting together the letters of a name so the engraver could recognize it and nor pass many times above the letters, but the app has a bug that shutdown sometimes for no reason, the good thing is that the app opens in the same spot as when it shutted down.
@@imadeit3579 Keep in mind that lasers generally speak GCode, so no matter what you are running on your Android device, it will probably generate SVG files at best, so you will still need to load this into something like Lightburn or whatever software your laser provides.
I would say your best bet is to find the best vector-based drawing app you can and as long as it can output one of many vector formats then you will be fine. I don't think the laser is your real problem in this situation.
This would be the functional equivalent of running something like Inkscape, Corel Draw or Adobe Illustrator on a computer.
@@SteveMakesEverything yes, i just needed some app that could draw in vector and also unify the paths, infinite design can do that, so when i get home i just load it in GRBL (gonna buy LB sooner) and then put it to cut on the machine 😋
@@imadeit3579 OK so the real question is if there is a vector drawing app for Android. I can't believe that one doesn't exist, but I just don't pay that much attention to the Android world.
I'm new . I downloaded Inkscape and I'm using lasergrbl on my laser. I tried to type a name in Inkscape but it puts blocks but in the text box on the right bottom the name is there. So I'm having trouble 😐
Sounds like you have a font that can’t be rendered. Try selecting a different font
@@SteveMakesEverything ok thanks
@@SteveMakesEverything it the fonts in Inkscape
@@SteveMakesEverything or one of them
@@johnrisher3007 Just try picking a different font for this text in Inkscape.
So the Fusion360 is free trial version? Does it expire?
There is a free version that from a design perspective is fully functional. There are limits on the number of active projects you can have and there isn't any support for CAM functions in the free one. For most people this is capable enough.
@@SteveMakesEverything do you have a link by chance? Great content btw
@@ventureproject6083 Start here: www.autodesk.com/products/fusion-360/personal-download
@@SteveMakesEverything THANKS
I would LOVE to work with you. If you’re interested in at very least chatting, feel free to contact me.
Feel free to shoot me a message at the address in the description
@@SteveMakesEverything I sent you an email