Looking for help guys. Spoke to the help desk but their unable to help me.
When I convert my images into SVG format for use with the plotter the machine prints out in double lines. I’ve tried reducing the image and other methods but unable so far to get single line drawing.
Anyone know any way round this?
Thanks
Can you be more specific:
What image format are you starting with? Can you post the image here?
What application are you using to translate it into svg?
Does the svg file look OK before you send it to the plotter? Can you post that too?
Thanks,
Charlie
I have not used mdraw, do you give it the JPEG and just say plot. It looks to me like what you’re getting is the outline of your line drawing rather than the line drawing itself. Perhaps you can use a different program to generate the SVG file and just feed that to mdraw. I can’t really give more concrete advice because I’m not working this way but my SVG goto program is InkScape.
Hi Charlie,
What other software do you recommend? When I asked the helpdesk al the said was to use InkScape.
InkScape is very good and free but I don’t know how to do what you need to do. I did a quick search and it seems what you want is called tracing bitmaps. There are a bunch of pages about doing this.
Here is a tutorial for inkscape https://inkscape.org/en/doc/tutorials/tracing/tutorial-tracing.en.html
The double line results from tracing the contour - I did not find a way to stop this…
I did a little googling and the thing you’re looking for is called a centerline trace. Inkscape apparently does not do that but there are some options for other tools or Inkscape based workarounds. Some manual editing of the resulting paths may be needed in either case.
Here are some links:
Unfortunately at it for hours today and still getting no where. Lines are doubled and now more shakey than ever.
This machine is turning out to be the worst thing I’ve ever purchased. Really suprised at the lack of help available from the MakeBlock support.
Sorry to hear your frustration. Can the machine draw the sample files OK? There are a couple here to try:
The file “Makeblock-pencil G-code examples.cnc” is nice and simple and has lots of good straight lines. If that looks good then it’s a problem generating the input to (I’m assuming you’re using) mDraw.
I tried the Michael Jackson sample and it was about 80% perfect. A few small errors here and there.
How are people getting drawings to work out perfect or is there such a thing? Better software or another format of software for the mdraw to accept more formats of photos etc.
Personally I’ve never used mDraw so I can’t speak to its capabilities or deficiencies. I’m a programmer and I’ve been generating my own drawing descriptions (.cnc files) directly.
You can always use another program to convert image formats to something that mDraw can accept but I’m afraid that mDraw will likely perform the same way. Converting an image into a line drawing is not an easy problem to solve with consistent results so I can forgive mDraw its issues.
The plotter machine is a technical hobbyist machine rather than a consumer grade offering so it might be the case that you’re expecting too much from the software and the support around it. The machine itself seems to be very well designed and performs quite nicely but the software is quite weak which makes sense when you consider that the primary market is educational/hobbyist where the results are secondary to the fun of assembly and debugging.
Commercial and consumer grade plotters don’t really exist any more having been supplanted by inkjet and laser printers even for very large scale architectural drawings. This kind of hobbyist grade machine is all that’s left in that space for pen drawings.
I understand what your saying by in the same sense is basically useless then for drawing? If it can’t draw a number of images and every image contains errors then what would be the use of this machine?
I really think makeblock should release better software for the mdraw. Once I got the machine working after having problems with the card etc, when i done my first drawing and had issues makeblock basically washed their hands and said the software isn’t the greatest in other words.
Ultimately all this machine can do is draw lines. If you’re able to turn your images into a series of lines (in InkScape they’re called paths) then the machine will draw them perfectly.
When I say line I don’t mean a visual line, I mean a series of points for the machine to move between i.e. a path for the pen to follow. There are lots of ways to generate these but generating them from a picture which is really just a grid of coloured squares is very hard and getting it just right is probably a highly manual process. Makeblock’s software is a bit crap and I avoid it as much as possible but as I say even InkScape can’t do what you want very well and that is good software.
If you have a graphics tablet then you should be able to draw the paths directly or even trace a picture. If not then you can still create the paths it’s just going to be a bit more manual.
I’m sympathetic because it seems like you bought one of these machines with incorrect expectations that none of makeblock’s marketing materials would do anything to dispel. All I can advise is to try and meet the machine’s limitations halfway (I don’t know what the returns policy is).
I really doubt they’ll take returns. They’ve got their money now.
The machine was meant to be getting used to replicate signatures of my staff for letters etc. They sign a lot of letters each day and this was meant to be a time saving exercise.
I did come on here before I purchased and asked questions to the support who did say it can be done easily. They also said the plotter could also write letters as well.
So in both cases we’re basically not true. So they did lie in a way to sell the product. Paying normal price is bad enough but getting hammered with over £170 custom charges as well was the killer.
