Corel X3 Trace/puzzle-ization questions

[Sean Sarmast]

Hi all,
I'm new to this website and fairly new to laser woodworking (I just took possession of my Epilog Mini 18 last week).
I bought Corel X3 at the same time and I've been tinkering with the trace bitmap options. I have yet to find a way to get a trace that does not have pieces or ragged edges that are not suitable for cutting into wooden shapes.
I don't know if this is the tool at its best or if I am not using it correctly.
Any help?
Also, I've been approaching this from another angle. If I have a complete vector drawing of a pattern, how do I turn it into individual pieces?
Sort of a puzzle-ization of the vector drawing. In AutoCAD, I could take the same drawing and go through each piece by the copy/paste/trim/repeat method but I just have to believe there is a better (read quicker) way.
Many thanks in advance, this forum actually helped me decide what to purchase before I even joined.

[Lee DeRaud]

Hi all,
I'm new to this website and fairly new to laser woodworking (I just took possession of my Epilog Mini 18 last week).
I bought Corel X3 at the same time and I've been tinkering with the trace bitmap options. I have yet to find a way to get a trace that does not have pieces or ragged edges that are not suitable for cutting into wooden shapes.
I don't know if this is the tool at its best or if I am not using it correctly.
Any help?
Also, I've been approaching this from another angle. If I have a complete vector drawing of a pattern, how do I turn it into individual pieces?
Sort of a puzzle-ization of the vector drawing. In AutoCAD, I could take the same drawing and go through each piece by the copy/paste/trim/repeat method but I just have to believe there is a better (read quicker) way.
Many thanks in advance, this forum actually helped me decide what to purchase before I even joined.Don't know exactly what the problem is with Trace, but there are slider controls to control the smoothing on the output as well as the level of detail that gets traced. But the real answer is to get a bitmap as close as possible to what you want before you use Trace. At the very least, apply some fairly aggressive spot removal, then a lot of color reduction using the Posterization transform.

Your second question is easier. The best new feature of X3 is the "SmartFill" tool: literally all it does is the exact function you describe. Select it, choose a color, and click on a region bounded by vector objects. It creates a new object filled in the chosen color using the bounding objects to determine the shape. For example, if you have three intersecting lines, clicking the SmartFill tool in the "middle" will give you the triangle defined by those three lines.

[Joe Pelonio]

Lee,

That's a cool feature, I really have to find the time to download x3.

Sean,

The quality of the vector trace is better if you start out with a good scan
or clipart file. When scanning be sure to set on B&W mode, and I find that outputting it as a tif gives the best resolution for tracing, much better than jpg, bmp etc.

[Mike Mackenzie]

Sean,

Why don't you just print from Autocad?

[Sean Sarmast]

Lee,

Thanks for the tip on the Smart Fill tool, that feature is exactly what I needed.

As for the PowerTrace, I have tried numerous settings for the smoothing and detail sliders as well as trying them under the various image options (high-res, low-res, etc.) and I still get images with small little offshoots or too many jagged lines.

As for printing from AutoCAD, I am not aware of an AutoCAD function that will "puzzle-ize" an traced image. I'd have to import into Corel and then back to AutoCAD.