Jonathan Bowen
10-09-2012, 10:49 PM
I just got a Hurricane Laser Agnes 40W Laser. It's working great. We had a bit of a learning curve but things are rocking and rolling now with several exceptions.
My current work flow is sketchup then export to dxf with a plugin and import into Lasercut 5.3. It works kinda... I can import a file once. If I make a change or import a different file then the software crashes like 90% of the time. I open it again and import the same file and it works fine. I'm using windows 7 if that matters. It's annoying and a time sink.
The other bigger issue is my plugin for sketchup. I have no clue were it came from. It was a long caffeine filled day because the laser was 3 weeks later then expected and work was backed up. My old workflow I used when outsourcing to an epilog was sketchup -> export to svg -> layout and text in inkscape -> export pdf. That didn't work and I couldn't get inkscape to work at all.
The sketchup plugin works fine but it has several option. units and type. It does stl and some 3d stuff as well. the two 2d options are polyline and lines. polyline is cleaner and makes the circles actual circles. lines is messy but I can eliminate overlap. I cut a lot of hexes and squares for flight stands. They all have a small circle in the middle. If I export as lines then the circles are little tiny lines and the brass inserts I use will not get full contact on the sides of the circle. They also look bad. However, I can use data check to delete all the overlap lines and get smoother/faster hexes and squares.
Any tricks for either smoothing the circles or exploding the hex/square poly lines? I've tried unit lines and smooth curves but they either screw it up or don't do anything. I'm also open to other sketchup plugins if anyone has a better one.
Thanks!
My current work flow is sketchup then export to dxf with a plugin and import into Lasercut 5.3. It works kinda... I can import a file once. If I make a change or import a different file then the software crashes like 90% of the time. I open it again and import the same file and it works fine. I'm using windows 7 if that matters. It's annoying and a time sink.
The other bigger issue is my plugin for sketchup. I have no clue were it came from. It was a long caffeine filled day because the laser was 3 weeks later then expected and work was backed up. My old workflow I used when outsourcing to an epilog was sketchup -> export to svg -> layout and text in inkscape -> export pdf. That didn't work and I couldn't get inkscape to work at all.
The sketchup plugin works fine but it has several option. units and type. It does stl and some 3d stuff as well. the two 2d options are polyline and lines. polyline is cleaner and makes the circles actual circles. lines is messy but I can eliminate overlap. I cut a lot of hexes and squares for flight stands. They all have a small circle in the middle. If I export as lines then the circles are little tiny lines and the brass inserts I use will not get full contact on the sides of the circle. They also look bad. However, I can use data check to delete all the overlap lines and get smoother/faster hexes and squares.
Any tricks for either smoothing the circles or exploding the hex/square poly lines? I've tried unit lines and smooth curves but they either screw it up or don't do anything. I'm also open to other sketchup plugins if anyone has a better one.
Thanks!