Adobe Illustrator

Overview

Adobe Illustrator (often shortened to AI or Illustrator) is a graphic design and illustration application widely used by artists and graphic designers. AI provides an enormous range of functionality for drawing vector-based art and combining these drawings with raster-based bitmap images. Because of this robust feature set it can be difficult to learn. Books, online tutorials and how-to videos often focus on the use of AI for creating commercial art projects. The purpose of this page is to explain the important subset of Illustrator features useful for creating projects to be cut and engraved on a laser cutter as well as to explain some of the specifics needed to prepare an Illustrator drawing to successfully cut and engrave on the ULS laser cutters used in Sandbox.

Sandbox has elected to focus on the use of Adobe Illustrator for laser projects in part because this program is available at no cost to all current UMD students via the Terpware site. You can install Illustrator and create designs on your own computer and bring the completed design as an .AI file to be cut and engraved at Sandbox.

Other popular software used to prepare projects for laser cutting are Corel Draw, which is similar in functionality to Illustrator, and Inkscape which is primarily a vector drawing program. It is also possible to use a CAD program such as AutoCAD or Fusion 360 to create a laser project. Use of these other software packages will not be discussed in this page.

Adobe Illustrator may also be used to prepare projects to be cut on the Glowforge laser cutter but many projects may instead be done completely within the Glowforge web application. This page does not discuss importing Illustrator files into the Glowforge web application.

Since AI is a vector-based drawing program with raster editing features it is a popular choice for preparing projects to be cut on a laser cutter as laser projects often combine vector lines to be cut (or scored) and raster images to be engraved. Using a vector drawing program is important for the cutting and scoring operations done on a laser as this allows you to draw an object to exact dimensions -- much as you would do with a more specialized computer aided design (CAD) software package -- and to have this object sent to the laser as a precise vector to be cut.

If you were to draw a square or similar shape in both a vector drawing program and a raster drawing program the resulting images might look similar but the model used to store these images would be very different. The vector program would create a mathematical representation of the shape and store this as a series of vectors, lines and arcs. The raster drawing program would store the image as a bitmap, an array of dots that create the shapes. both Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop a raster-based program such as Adobe Photoshop

The basic process for sending a file from Adobe Illustrator to the ULS laser cutter is:

• Draw the shapes to be cut and engraved in Illustrator.
• Import any images needed into Illustrator and adjust them to engrave correctly or trace them if you intend to cut or score these shapes.
• Verify that the stroke width and color of all objects you've drawn are set correctly to tell the laser cutter to cut, score, or raster engrave that object.
• Use Illustrator's Print command to send the shapes to the ULS print driver.
• Switch to the ULS Universal Control Panel (UCP) application to correctly position your project and to set the power settings for the material you are cutting.

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Adobe Illustrator Basics

The easiest way to get started is clicking create new and either using one of the preset templates for size or go to art & illustration and making a large canvas by changing the size to some large number bigger than you need like 15 inches by 15 inches (Make sure you change the units from points to inches).

Make sure you are in RGB mode under "Advanced Options" because if you aren't then you won't be able to make a full blue line for vector cutting (To change, go to File->Document Color Mode).

This can show you what mode you are in

Basic Tools

There are many basics for Adobe Illustrator that can help you out. All of these can be found on then default toolbar

• Shape Tool: This tool can be used to make shapes that can be filled in or set the outline as a vector or as a cut. Right clicking this will let you select one of many types of shapes.

The shapes icon and multiple options.

• Shape Builder Tool (Shortcut - Shift + M): This is a very useful tool for merging multiple shapes into one. First, you need to select all the shapes overlapped with sides desired to be removed. Next you click the Shape Builder tool on the toolbar. Then you draw a line from the first shape through the path you want deleted into the second shape. Adobe will do its best to merge the paths of the two or more shapes. After you have drawn the line and before releasing your click, the red outlines will be the combined shape and the blue edge will be the deleted edge.

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  This is the shape builder tool

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  This shows you how the merged shapes will look

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  This is the final shape

And once this new shape has been created, you can do everything you could with a normal square or any other shape. You can change the outline to something else or change the fill and now everything inside will be that same fill.

• Eyedropper Tool (Shortcut - I): If you had some fill with a predetermined color that you wanted to add more of, you can use the eyedropper tool to copy that exact color. While selecting the eyedropper tool just click on a point and whatever color that is will be copied. Then you can draw or create shapes of that exact color.

This is the icon for the eyedropper tool.

• Type Tool (Shortcut - T): This tool allows you to write text in with many different properties such as fonts, spacing between letters, spacing between letters, and many other options. Clicking anywhere with this tool selected will open up a typing bar at that location. Right clicking on this will allow you to change the writing type to typing on a path or typing vertically.

This is the icon for the text tool.

• Rotate Tool (Shortcut - R): This tool allows you to change the orientation of an object to face a different direction. Holding left click on a selected object then moving the mouse will rotate. You can also enter in a rotation amount by right clicking, selecting transform, then entering an amount in "angle" or entering an amount in the transform properties of the object. You must be already selection an object or group to rotate before using the tool.

This is the rotate icon.

This is not an exhaustive list but just a few that you will find very common.

Role of Colors and Types of Cutting

Colors all have a specific role in Adobe Illustrator and cause different effects in the laser cutting. The laser cutter needs to know what's distinguished as a vector/raster/cut so each of these has their own color.

• Vector: This cutting is blue, or RGB value of 255 BLUE/0 RED/0 GREEN. This causes the laser cutter to trace over the lines that are designated as blue with a more powerful laser. This is useful for doing outlines of an image or tracing the outlines of words.
• Cut: This cutting is red, or RGB value of 255 RED/0 Blue/0 Green. This causes the laser to cut through whatever material you have to remove it from the larger block of material. The laser cutter knows how strong to fire to cut the laser because it uses the type of material and material thickness to know how much power would be needed. If you are having problems with your material not cutting all the way through make sure the thickness and type are correctly inputted.
• Raster: This cut works by engraving different colors at different intensities to distinguish the colors. This makes your images look more like black and white images. Any color that is not full RED or full BLUE (other than white) will be rastered.

White will not show up as anything.

Using Artboards

This is the artboard icon in the toolbar

Artboards are used in Adobe Illustrator as separate pages in other applications such as Microsoft Word. These are completely separate canvases that can be designed on independent of the others. You always start with one artboard with the size designated when creating the project. Then when designing, you can print a single one out at a time. This can be useful for creating multiple similar designs so you don't have to keep switching between tabs.

Three artboards each with their own designs

This is part of the print screen. Here you can go through all the artboards and move around the screen to see the entire artboard.

Artboards can even be created of any size regardless of other artboards. You could have a 10x10 inch square and a 15x15 inch square as two artboards in the same project. A key thing to remember is you might be tempted to make the size of your artboard equal to the size of the laser cutting bed. You want to resist this urge and make the artboard the size of your material size. This will help when designing your project to make sure you don't make it too large and if there are multiple parts, that they all fit in the material.

Here are some key settings.

There are some settings that help when printing. The ignore artboards checkbox allows you to combine all artboards into one and print them all. The range allows you to limit which artboards are shown (using a dash 1-3 (1,2,3) or commas 1,3 (1,3)). Skip blank artboards does exactly what it says. Your artboards might be rotated and looking weird and if they do try unchecking the auto-rotate and manually choose which orientation to the right of the checkbox.

Selection Tools

Selection tools are the tools that allow you to control and manipulate multiple objects at once. There are a few different selection tools each with their own purpose. Selection (V): This is the basic selection button. Clicking will select the object or group underneath the cursor. Used for moving objects/groups without changing shape.

Direct Selection (A): Used for selection individual points or paths and editing them. This can be used for moving points on a path while keeping the shape of the rest of the object's paths.

Right clicking on the second arrow or using the A hotkey will select this tool.

Lasso Selection (Q): This tool is very useful for selecting multiple objects in a weird shape. This allows you do draw the bounds of some shape and everything inside will be selected. For example, rather than the normal selection only able to do rectangles, you can make a selection in the shape of a triangle.

Importing and Editing Images

Images can be imported into Adobe by dragging the picture from your computer onto the canvas or copy pasting the image from the internet. All images that are entered will default be rastered because the colors are not absolutely red or blue like cutting needs to be.

Using Image Trace

The image entered is normally something like a PNG or JPG or similar picture. Adobe Illustrator needs it to be an SVG file to be able to print to the printer as a raster. This can be done by clicking the image and going to the image properties and clicking "Image Trace".

This image trace will scan your image and produce it as a Scalable Vector Graphic (SVG) which means it can be resized to any size and keep its quality. This SVG is whats needed for the UCP to be able to cut. Without this SVG the image will not be printed. Each of these image traces are used in different situations to produce a different outcome:

• High/Low Fidelity Photo: Used for tracing actual images. High is for high quality and low is for lower quality images (Try both to see which is better)
• 3/6/16 Colors: Limit the number of colors in the design to the designated amount. If there are more then Adobe will change similar colors to the same color. This is useful for clipart and similar images without too much detail. This will still retain similar colors to the base image but can lessen the detail of multiple colors possibly enhancing the look of cutting.
• Shades of Grey: Changes all colors into different shades of grey. This keeps the overall look of the image as lighter colors will be lighter shades of grey and darker colors will be darker greys. This is useful for printing as it is more of a representation of what your image will print like. Since the cutter can't do colors the different shades of grey represent the different levels of intensity of cutting.
• Black and White Logo: Changes all of the colors to either a black or white. Very useful for creating contrasting images because it will either cut somewhere or not, not having different shades of cutting. Every color that is changed to black will be cut and every color that is white will not be cut. Very useful when cutting glass/clear material as different intensities of cutting do not show distinguishable shades in the material.
• Silhouettes: Turns all colors of the image to black. Used for just cutting the shadow of a full image instead of wanting detail inside. Also allows you to easily get the outline of an image. More information on getting the outline in Outlining an Image

These are not all the possible options but the most useful ones. Feel free to try the others and figure out their uses. You can also keep switching between all of the options to see which is the best fit for your image.

Outlining an Image

Sometimes you might not want to raster an image and would just like to vector cut the outline of the image, or vector outline the outside of an image and raster the inside. Outlining images is also very important for cutting on glass or clear material because different colors don't show up well on transparent materials.

To create an outline of an image to vector cut the image rather than raster, firstly you need to image trace it.

Change the image into an SVG to be able to modify it.

Next you need to expand the image to allow editing on the paths.

Trace the individual paths to be modified.

Then you need to change the stroke to what color you want (blue for vector, red for cut, any other for raster) and set the fill to nothing. This will remove all colors inside and just leave the shell outline.

Change the stroke to desired color (255 RED for cut, 255 BLUE for vector) and fill to nothing to remove colors.

You must remember that sometimes the outline square of the image is still there. To remove this you can visit the Editing the Paths of an Image section to help delete it. Short answer is double click a path to go into isolation mode, click a path and delete it.

If you want to remove some of the paths that were outlined (Like some extraneous inner paths) you can check the Editing the Paths of an Image section. This can be useful for creating an outline for cutting out a rastered image. You can outline the entire image and delete everything but the outline and place the rastered image inside the outline. This will raster the inside but cut out the entire image.

Editing the Paths of an Image

After image tracing an object and expanding the path. This creates the paths of the object that it thinks is best but sometimes you don't want all of them. In order to remove some of these you first need to go into isolation mode by double clicking on a path. Then you can click individual paths and delete then how you see fit.

You might find while deleting some paths that multiple paths are connected together. These paths are grouped together and can be released by clicking on the paths and clicking Release. This allows you to click the individual paths and delete them.

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  Release makes all the paths individual objects

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  Now you can delete the inside paths and create the outline

Now you would be able to place this outline over a copied, traced, version of the image and have the image also be cut out.

Using Text

To insert text into your file click the "T" on the toolbar and click somewhere that you to type. Then type whatever you want and can change the font, size, alignment and other properties in the properties tab of the text. If you right click on the text icon in the toolbar you can do some other text settings like typing on a path or vertically.

There are a couple different things you can do with text for laser cutting. You can mess with the outline and fill to raster or cut the outline or fill the inside with color.

• Outlining: Once you write the text, you can go to the properties of the textbox and change the outline. Changing this to anything other than red or blue will just raster it. If you change it to blue, you can vector cut the outline, this looks very nice as a contrast to just rastering the entire middle because it leaves the middle as the base color. On the other hand if you use a red outline then you can cut out all the letters and then use them on something else like on another board. You can ignore the outline by setting the outline to the no outline color (white with a red slashed line).

• Inside Fill: Any fill on the inside will just be rastered out. Using this without any outline will just cause a shaded out section looking like the text. The intensity of what is rastered depends on what color you choose as the fill. The darker the color the darker the shade that will be burned out. If you didn't want any fill then changing it to the no fill will do (white with a red slashed line).

If you combine both the outlining and fill then you can do things like vectoring the outline of text and rastering the inside to provide even more contrast. Using different fills can have different effects, the lighter color you use the lighter raster it will do inside.

Adobe Illustrator Tips

1. Make sure when you are creating the new page for design, that the advanced option is set to RGB mode or else you won't be able to make the colors for vector cutting.
   • If you are in CMYK mode or vector cuts don't seem to be showing up as vector cuts in the UCP then check this setting.
2. In order to cut out an image you need to image trace it. See Using Image Trace for more help.
3. When rastering images onto glass and clear acrylic, do not try and use intricate pictures with many colors.
   • Glass and clear material doesn't differ much depending on how deep the cut is. Normally try and make it a silhouette or black and white logo and it will cut much nicer.
4. When trying to cut through a material, if the cut is not going all the way through, make sure you check that the material thickness and type are correct.
5. When creating your artboard, you should set the size to be the size of your material not of the entire print bed to reduce chances of printing off your material.