CorelDraw Powerclip

[George M. Perzel]

Hi Gang;
I don't normally use the Powerclip function in Coreldraw very much so not really familiar with its effects. In the attached cdr I have a crosshatch pattern made from vector lines and a "container" shaped like a pistol grip handle insert. I select the pattern, select Powerclip and place it into the grip "container". Works great but inside hatch pattern is not visible in wireframe or by laser-what happened and what am I doing wrong? thanks
Best Regards,
George
Laserarts
223740

[Mark Sipes]

select the image and see what the thickness of the hatch pattern is with the "pen features".. My software - Trotec only see lines that that are .005 or greater... for raster and .0005 for vector

[Gary Hair]

George,
After you place the grid in the container, right click on the container. Select "edit contents" and move the grid to where you want it to be. The "problem" is that Corel has a setting for how to handle placing objects when you powerclip. The new default is to leave everything where they are when you place them. The "old" default (prior to X5) was to automatically center the objects. For the life of me I can't find where the setting is, but it is there somewhere. In the mean time, editing the contents will get you where you need to be.

Gary

edit: you can also right click and select "Lock Contents to Powerclip" and move the container around until it is over the contents. After you get it where you want it, select "Lock Contents..." again. It doesn't seem like it does anything when you click it but it does. It's just a toggle switch but you don't know what state it's in unless you move the container.

[George M. Perzel]

Mark/Gary-thanks for input.
Mark-hatch pattern is a hairline so I can vector cut it-even if I change the line thickness to 1 pt and then powerclip it and add it to the container, it doesn't show up in wireframe which means the laser will not see it. Is powerclip only to be used on bitmaps??

Gary-positioning is not the problem, pattern is not visible to laser, even though it shows in normal view in Corel
Best Regards,
George
Laserarts

[Gary Hair]

Is powerclip only to be used on bitmaps??

Nope, I use it often with vector lines. Have you tried vectoring the lines without powerclipping them? Maybe they are the wrong color for your driver? Maybe CMYK instead of RGB?

Gary

[Gary Hair]

Try this George

[George M. Perzel]

Gary;
Awesome-OK, how did you do it?
Best Regards,
George
Laserarts

[Mike Null]

George

Have you tried to fill the container with a post script hatch fill. It will do the same thing and you can vary all settings. If you convert your drawing to a pdf then re-open in Corel you can even change colors of parts of the cross hatch. (in the event you wanted to create a 3d look on the handle.)

[Gary Hair]

Gary;
Awesome-OK, how did you do it?
Best Regards,
George
Laserarts

George,
I have two tools in Corel that I use A LOT - smart fill and front minus back/back minus front. Here's how I did this:
1. Draw a rectangle that is larger than the hatch
2. Select the objects in the following order - outline, rectangle, hatch - hold the shift key while you select to get them all
3. Press the "C" key then the "E" key to center all of the objects.
4. Select the outline and the rectangle and move them completely away from the hatch.
5. Using the smart fill tool click in the area between the outline and the rectangle - make sure you have a contrasting color selected for the smart fill.
6. Select the object that you just created with smart fill and use the shift key to select the hatch also.
7. Press "C" and then "E" to center them.
8. Check object manager and ensure the hatch is below the object in the list of objects.
9. Click on "back minus front"
10. Delete the object
Viola!

It seems like a lot of steps, but I use this technique for so many things that it's really fast for me. You would be amazed at how many things you can create using smart fill!

Gary

[George M. Perzel]

Thanks, Guys;
Mike-did fool around with PS fill but get fill which is repeating PS letters.........
Gary;
OK-thanks-curious why doesn't the Powerclip function work on this?
Best Regards,
George
Laserarts

[Bill Overturf]

FYI to set Corel to auto center powerclips in X5 go to options in the legend on the left under workspace click on edit put a check mark by Auto-Center new Power-Clip Contents

[Mike Null]

George

In the view menu check "enhanced" instead of normal to see the post script fills. I leave mine there as a default.


Here's an example that takes very little time. This would be a raster image.

[Abe Levinson]

Just wanted to say thank you to Gary for the steps on that smart fill function for making a cutting mask. This will help me a lot!

[Rangarajan Saravana kumar]

It might be other way you would see its easy...
1. Select the hatched line and group it first, then piston
2. Press Control and C & then Control E
3. You would find both are centered.
4. select both and use the Intersect button on top, take the required piece, thats all

Regards,
Saravana kumar

[George M. Perzel]

Hi Ranga
You got it! Right on and simple.
Position the hatch pattern where you wish over the grip pattern- select them both- and click on intersect in shaping
Great-thanks and thanks to all who responded -still don't know why the Powerclip thing doesnt work.
Best Regards,
George
Laserarts

[Rangarajan Saravana kumar]

Would you get us more detail, about the Legend etc., ? Because we suffered a bit without this power clip option

Regards,
Saravana kumar

[Chuck Stone]

.

Here's an example that takes very little time. This would be a raster image.

Now, I would do a gray/white/gray gradient and fill each of those white areas
and engrave it using the 3D settings. This is a great pattern to use for testing it.

[Mike Null]

Chuck

In order to do that you must publish the file to a PDF then bring it back into Corel where you'll be able to open it as curves and change colors etc. Without doing this the fill can't be altered and run then altered and run again.