Center of Heart

[Daniel Duane Owen]

Okay, here's kind of a random question: What's a good method of pinpointing the center of a heart shape? It's not halfway from top to bottom like most things, and most of the time I feel like I'm just guessing and hoping I'm not far off. I often have to engrave heart-shaped charms and pendants, so a sure-fire method would save me a lot of time in the long run.

[James Foster]

Take your absolute "X" and "Y" measurement, and recreate with a rectangle box. If in CorelDRAW, under the "view" tab, select "snap to object". Now, select any drawing tool and hover over where you think the middle of the rectangle is. When the middle is found a blue circle/target will appear where the absolute middle is. Just place a mark there and use that as a reference for your heart project.

Hope that helps.

-James

[Daniel Duane Owen]

Thanks for the reply. I have Corel but I'm not too proficient yet. I'm often amazed by how much it can do.

Are you saying this will find the center of a rectangle drawn around the heart, or the heart itself? Because the rectangle and the heart have different centers... Maybe I don't fully understand your instructions.

[James Foster]

Sorry, not sure what your looking for. Can you illustrate for me?

[Daniel Duane Owen]

Ok, here's a basic example. The lower dot is the center (approximately) of the rectangle around the heart, and the higher one is closer to the actual center. If I were to position text on the rectangle's center, it would look too low.
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I just realized, maybe I'm looking for the y-position where the rectangle touches the edge of the heart? (i.e. the widest part)

[Dee Gallo]

Daniel,

If it were my job, I would center the lettering on the width of the heart and then, depending on the style of lettering (ascenders, decenders, flourishes, etc. which vary) I would move the letters up or down to fit the space. I would not rely on a mathematical solution as this might not be the best aesthetic solution. Make sure you make the lettering small enough to leave negative space around it so you don't get a crowded look.

If you make an inside boundary to use as a guideline this might help you. Just remove it or put it on a non-printing layer before you engrave so it does not print!

cheers, dee

[James Foster]

I would not worry about a center. I would just do what looks good. Use your artistic vision.

[Daniel Duane Owen]

Good ideas Dee, thanks. So far I've been guessing, usually with success, where to place the engraving, but not being able to see the result until after the fact is the real problem. On those small items, being off by just a couple millimeters can make a huge difference. That's why I'm looking for a definite answer. If the shape or style of the engraving gives rise to further adjustments, so be it, but at least I'd have a consistent starting point. Well I guess now I'm just repeating what you said...

[Larry Bratton]

Right, the person looking at it doesn't care about the mathematical center, just the appearance.

[Daniel Duane Owen]

Right, the person looking at it doesn't care about the mathematical center, just the appearance.

I completely agree, but the way I do it I can't see what it looks like until it's done.

[David Epperson]

If you were to look at it as a triangle - the center would be 1/3 down from the top and 2/3 up from the tip.

[Terry Swift]

Daniel - a lot of times many people use painters tape, etc. to run a positional check as I would call it - low power, fast speed. I'd suspect jewelry to be a bit tougher to keep the piece in place when removing the tape; but it does help to find the right spots. Do you use a template? Maybe the supplier has a template you can download; as many small item makers like Chew-Barka have templates to work with.

[Tony Lenkic]

Daniel,

When doing job like that cut out a jig from acrylic or cardboard for accurate placement of your hart or any irregular object. Position it on setup page on non printing layer and use second layer for variable text that you can move around for visual placement. This way your jig is always in same spot and no placement guessing would be required.
Painters tape is good option as well to verify correct layout on an object.

[Dee Gallo]

Terry and Tony are absolutely right - I ALWAYS use tape to make sure registration is correct, but there is no need to remove it, just burn right through it. I don't bother making jigs unless I know I'm going to have a bunch to do. I just print a copy or outline on a piece of paper using 20 power/100 speed and use double faced tape to hold the item in place once it's placed on top. I use flat magnets to mark the right and bottom of the paper to make sure I get perfect placement every time and nothing moves. Run your file again at 20p/100 sp to make sure everything is good. But still use the tape... you never know! You don't want to make a mistake you'll have to pay for later when you have small tolerances.

[Daniel Duane Owen]

The tape methods are good ideas; one small problem though, I have a mechanical engraver, not a laser. On our manual engraver I've used scotch tape for exactly this, since I can easily regulate the pressure and not go through the tape, but no such luck with my machine.
I've actually made heart templates before and just engraved both text and heart outline onto scrap metal to get an idea how it would look, but obviously this wastes some time.

David, the triangle idea sounds like it might be a good solution, I'll give it a try.


Daniel,

When doing job like that cut out a jig from acrylic or cardboard for accurate placement of your hart or any irregular object...

That sounds useful, but I'm afraid I don't really understand the setup... I'll have to experiment a bit and see whether I can do this.