Louisiana Widlife & Fishery Enforcment Badge

[bryancab]

I am making this for the Louisiana wild life and fisheries and cant get this logo to trace right
anyone have any ideas or I can get the logo in a dxf format please

thank you

[icmplasma85]

Here's a start but will need work before it's cut ready.

LA WILDLIFE AND FISHERY.dxf

[grump]

My first post on this forum, not sure if I can upload but here goes.
Have a play with these, hope it helps.

It won't take bmp files? You can do a lot with bitmaps.

Converted to jpg for upload.

01.jpg

211.dxf

[hemichargersrt8]

comparison between hand and software tracing

louisiana wildlife.DXF

[grump]

Wow, that's good.
I need to learn these skills.

[hemichargersrt8]

Thanks Grump. Heck, I don't even know if the original poster still needs this as he hasn't acknowledged you or ICMPLASMA85 effort and time. Not all designs or jobs require manual creation. I was simply trying to demonstrate that when required, members can create very high quality renditions that represent the object and just as important will help assure improved cut quality and improved overall appearance.

[grump]

And demonstrate that you did very well, I thank you for wising me up on that.

I haven't introduced myself to these forums as yet, I could see nowhere to do it but am still looking around.
I am a retired computer engineer who refuses to have Microsoft products in the house, I gave up on them when the Longhorn project arose and made the machines media centres more than computers and slowed down an otherwise efficient system.
So that limits me somewhat.
I have developed an interest in cnc and do some engraving with my little router and laser diodes.
I have written my own os based on Unix running Linuxcnc and been playing with graphics commands to get pics to G-code.
I thought my results were good until I saw what you people are doing.

Question for you though, does the nice picture translate any better to machine code?
I have been trying to do centerline tracing to acheive a thin single line rather than a thick V-cavre track, my work has been engraving small pieces jewellery and such.

[hemichargersrt8]

This forum is great for meeting people with such diverse backgrounds. Thank you for your brief background, I am envious how you learned to do all that. I haven't a clue what you are describing but I am a smarter man now thanks to this exchange.
Now to the question. Virtually all man made objects were originally designed and created using lines and arcs. Only objects designed by "mother nature" and "graphic artists" seem to use splines.
When trying to re-create an image or scene and translating to machine code, an entity described with a single long arc versus a spline that is converted to a polyline (described in possibly hundreds of short line segments) will always machine better.
The problem with software traced images, the software does not know or understand the "design intent". The software typically will describe the image almost exclusively with splines. For example, the software does not know the difference between the letter "A" and a "mountain peak". The software does not understand many objects are symmetrical in design. The left side of an object ie: "police badge" will be an exact mirror of the right hand side.
Hand or manual tracing allows me use to fewest number of entities to describe an object or scene that when translated to machine code allows the machine to operate at it's optimum performance.

[429p]

hemicharger, please describe "hand or manual tracing." The two scans by grump look like my scans in Inkscape, i.e. not very usable for plasma cutting. Your trace is excellent. Would you describe the process in going from the original logo posted by bryancab to your .dxf file?

Thanks for your help. Carr

[plasmanewbie]

Great info, thanks for the efforts guys!