I’ve had my Shapeoko 3 for about a year now and am really enjoying it in my retirement. The process of finding images and prepping them to create “clean and legible” results after creating the toolpath can be arduous at times. Personalized items developed from scratch to conclusion have been very satisfying and the effort vs reward is well worth the time. However, there are times I would just like to find an image/file that is “ready to go” and allow me to jump pretty much right to creating the toolpath etc.
My process to date has been to search the internet to find images that are of interest and that appear to be something that can be converted to a toolpath that yields to a nice outcome… but in reality the success has been 10-15% . It can get very frustrating and demotivating.
I am using Carbide Create and Carbide Motion. Not doing 3D yet… but am intrigued by it.
Are there websites with “free” quality SVG/DXF files that are proven to be reliable to source?
And the community had the following notes on the wiki:
Often, clip art will be done in stroked lines which are not suited to most CAM programs — the solution is expanding the strokes and unioning them: Converting line art for drawing
One more thing to use is the Image Trace Function for pixel images. You can try the different settings on a busy image to see if extraneous pieces can be eliminated.
SVG file abound on the Internet, HOWEVER, be aware that ANY file you obtain, free or purchased, needs some very critical review - under enlarged viewing conditions - before you trust it on your system. Don’t automatically accept that they are ready to run on your system - even if it comes from a friend!
Along with what @JayGee said free can really cost you. I have Norton 360 on my Windows machine. When searching for images on google I often am stopped by Norton telling the site I am attempting to go to is malicious. There are tons of bad sites that are trying to entice you click. Those are bad but what I really hate are the ones that promise free images if you sign up. There is no free lunch and they will email market you and sell your data to other marketers. So be ware of “Free” because it can cost you a lot more then you think.
My free dog is likely around $5000.00 so far for 7 years of vet bills, shots, food and love. But she was free.
Free is hit and miss in my experience as well. Sometimes you get a good, crisp vector from a reputable site. Sometimes you get a jumble of non-closed vectors that have rats nests of lines in some small corner you have to zoom in 1,000x to find.
Lately I’ve just started searching on Etsy and buying from well-reviewed sellers. The $3 I spend usually saves me like 3 hours in cleaning up a free one.
Also Carbide Create’s tracing produces some pretty clean vectors. So if you can find a sharp image, it may get the job done as well.
I like to use Inkscape’s Trace Bit map. This tool can be hit or miss, but I have achieved some very nice results very quickly. The resulting images always need to be cleaned up, but this is a quick way to turn any type of image into an SVG. Solid colors work best. You can also use Gimp photo editor to preprocess grainy, multicolored source material to improve results further. The tool itself has some impressive settings that will drastically change the bit map you generate. Both pieces of software are free.
