Changing fonts to be able to lasercut them

[frank_be]

Can somebody show me how to alter an existing font for easier lasercutting?

For example the letter "O"
Imagine that the black of the letter is being cut away out of a metalsheet. That means that the center of the "O" will come loose. To prevent this from happening I would like to add two "legs" to connect the innerpart to the outside surrounding white-or better the metal sheet.

If this can be done easily in Fontcreator, I wil buy this program for shure.

Greetings,
Frank

[Dick Pape]

If this fits your need, it is very simple to do:

The was a typical thin Oh. I used the knife (Cut contours) to slice horizontally two times and then deleted the highlighted parts.

There really is no "inner part" There are two concentric circles (in this Oh) -- an outer black one and inner white one. They will not fall away in the sheet metal tradition.

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

Another method is to draw a long thin rectangle, and use "Get Exclusion of contours."

Both the knife and the advanced contour operations are available in the 30-day free trial (which is the Professional version), but not in the Home Edition.

[Dick Pape]

Yes that's better as you can form the rectangle and copy/paste it to every glyph and it will end up in the same location throughout.

Never have used Exclusion. But then again never tried lasering a font either.

[frank_be]

If this fits your need, it is very simple to do:

The was a typical thin Oh. I used the knife (Cut contours) to slice horizontally two times and then deleted the highlighted parts.

There really is no "inner part" There are two concentric circles (in this Oh) -- an outer black one and inner white one. They will not fall away in the sheet metal tradition.

YES that's what I'm looking for!

How exactly do you delete the cut parts? What button?
The exlude function is active in the trial version but doesn't seem to work... I must be doing something wrong here.

I think the edit I need is really simple to do, but I can't figure out the workflow...

Greetings,
Frank

[William]

Start with an O. That is, an outer clockwise contour and an inner counterclockwise contour.

Now, draw another contour, such as a rectangle, across them. This could be drawn using Insert Contour... facility and positioning the points one by one; or, for a rectangle the contour could be drawn directly using the Add rectangle tool which is in one of the toolbars.

There are now three contours.

Use the following.

Edit Select All

Edit Join Contours Exclusion

There are now five contours, though the design may look the same.

Click on the background to clear the highlighting.

Click in the upper part (or left part if the rectangle is horizontal) of what looks like a rectangle and press the delete button on the keyboard.

Click in the lower part (or right part if the rectangle is horizontal) of what looks like a rectangle and press the delete button on the keyboard.

Click in the middle part of what looks like a rectangle and press the delete button on the keyboard.

This should produce the desired design of letter O.

William Overington

10 March 2008

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

Moved to the Tutorial Forum

[Dick Pape]

Boy, that's exactly how I did it, but with a smaller less distinctive Oh ... Thanks BP.

DP

[frank_be]

Thanks very much !!!

Greetings,
Frank