Illustrator help

[Gary Hair]

It happens quite often where I'll get an eps or ai file from a designer using Illustrator. The problem is that when they draw using white filled objects to cover up parts of black objects that they don't want to show. For the co2 it's not an issue but for the fiber it is. How do I tell them to view this in illustrator so that they can see the problem and see how the fiber sees the image? In Corel I would simply select the entire graphic and left click the "X" to remove fill then right click on black to give everything an outline - I'm just not sure how to tell them the Illustrator equivalent.

[Scott Shepherd]

"View", "Outline"

[Gary Hair]

so easy... Thanks!

[Bill George]

Its nice to have so many smart people on here!

[Brian Leavitt]

You can also just right click in empty space and select "Outline" from the menu that pops up.

[Ross Moshinsky]

View -> Outline is the way to go.

Can your galvo run a JPEG/BMP/PNG? If so, just export the vector as a really high resolution bitmap image and then scale it in your software. Should work 9 times out of 10.

[Scott Shepherd]

View -> Outline is the way to go.

Can your galvo run a JPEG/BMP/PNG? If so, just export the vector as a really high resolution bitmap image and then scale it in your software. Should work 9 times out of 10.

JPEG's don't work well at all on Chinese galvo systems. Painfully slow and not like what you are used to seeing a galvo do.

[Gary Hair]

View -> Outline is the way to go.

Can your galvo run a JPEG/BMP/PNG? If so, just export the vector as a really high resolution bitmap image and then scale it in your software. Should work 9 times out of 10.

It can do bitmaps, at least there is an option to import into ezcad. I've never tried one, never had a need.

[Kev Williams]

I hate those kinds of files, because whatever's hidden under white paint doesn't fool my LS900 driver, it will laser any black hiding under white. Found that out the hard way more than once.

There IS a WYSIWYG engraving mode in my driver that will engrave only what you see on the screen, but that mode was designed for the USB machines. I can use it, if I have lots of time to kill. Just a simple 1/4" tall "A" takes about a full minute to load to the machine via parallel. It's faster to just manually remove all unneeded crap...

[Michele Welch]

You could also select the entire image and then click on the "\" on the color tab at the bottom of your tools menu and it should take the white out of the whole image.

illy.JPG

[Doug Griffith]

You could also select the entire image and then click on the "\" on the color tab at the bottom of your tools menu and it should take the white out of the whole image.

illy.JPG

This will not work if they are using white to mask areas.

[Doug Griffith]

Viewing in outline mode won't really help with engraving, just cutting. Even then, it's questionable because you don't know if white is being used to mask a line intended to vector cut. I would tell them to "Select All", then "Object : Expand Appearance", then "Type : Create Outlines", and then go to the Pathfinder tool and "Merge". Then "Ungroup All" and possibly "Compound Path : Release" until no longer required, then select a white filled object and "Select : Same : Appearance", and then delete all the white areas. It's pretty simple actually. It will get rid of all the white areas used as masks. It will also fix any text issues you might have and fix strokes, arrowheads, effects and whatnot that may not translate well. If there are embedded bitmaps, it might be best to open the Illustrator file in Photoshop and raster to the best resolution for your output. Also note that the "merge" command creates overlapping lines. The trick to finding and getting rid of these is to temporarily set stroke transparency to around 50%. All overlapping lines will show as 100%. They are easy to spot and manually remove this way.