Inlay

[Scotty]

Hello,


I'm trying to ad a military badge to a tattered flag design that I have so it would be like an "INLAY" in the flag design. The badge also has an outlay behind it that I want to union and remove the stars in the design so the badge will stand out more in the pattern. (border around the badge) I can't seem to get the badge union and or get the outlay to work. I plan to use this with my CNC plasma table.

Thank you,

Scotty

[HeatherM]

Hi Scotty, and welcome!  Are the stars separate from the rest of the design?  If you click on them can you move them separately?  If you can't, then either they are Grouped or combined with the design.

Usually when Union won't work it is because either you don't have two vectors or there is a Group somewhere in your selection.  When you have the things that you want to Union selected, look at the message bar at the bottom of the Inkscape window.  It will list the types of objects that you have selected.  It should list "x objects of type Path" with no images or groups.  If Group is listed, you need to find it and use Object/Ungroup or right click and Ungroup.  If x=1 then you need to use Path/Break apart.

If you need more help, it would be easier if you could post the file so that someone could take a look.

[HeatherM]

Your flag is Grouped.  You will need to Ungroup it before you can use any of the Path menu options.  Normally I would say that since there are so many pieces, I would ungroup and then use Control K to combine them into one vector Path but you have a lot of open shapes that Inkscape will automatically close and give you some odd lines.  Does your machine cut on the vector, by color, or something else?  The answer might change what I would recommend.

[brynn]

Welcome Scotty!

The first step for me is to be able to understand what you want to do.  I didn't quite catch on  from your description - well not clearly anyway.

Ok, so the badge is going to be a wood inlay, inlayed into other wood.  Right?  Remove the stars from the flag, so that the "field of blue" will contain the badge instead of stars?

I'm not clear what you mean by "outlay".....unless the outlay is the piece of wood which holds the inlay?

By "badge union" do you mean that you want to make a line drawing of the badge, and combine it into the field of blue?  So that the badge won't be green and black, but it will be just a line drawing?  The reason I'm thinking like that, is because these are cutting lines, right?  I guess some cutter/plotters need the paths to be certain colors, but otherwise, color is irrelevant.  Right?

In one of your comments, it sounded like you wanted to remove all the stars.  But a different comment sounded like you just want to remove some of the stars - where the badge is, I assume?

If I have a correct general understanding, here's the first tip I can give you.  I can't think of any way to "union the badge" in one step.

Most of the path operations (booleans) won't work with the tattered flag design, because it's too complex.  If you want to try anyway, just to see what happens (or prove to yourself) you'll need to combine all the parts of the flag, instead of grouping.  Also, duplicate the green badge path first, because it will be sacrificed during most of the operations.  Or if you make an outset of the badge, duplicate that first.

The only path operations which might be helplful, are Division or Cut Path.  Experiment with a couple of simple paths first.  And you'll need to do some node editing probably, too.

Last tip:  Make sure you don't have any leftover bits and pieces from previous work or experiments, hiding anywhere, which could cause problems.

Ok, well I understand what you mean about learnig to do it yourself.  So I tried to give you just some general guidance.  But I can be more specific, if you like.  Or you could ask whatever specific questions you have.

Oops, I see Heather just posted while I'm typing.  But I'll post anyway.

[brynn]

Hi Scotty,
I got your video, but I'm not clear what you're asking.  Are you still stuck?  Do you want us to write out steps?  Or are you still tryihg to learn on your own? 

Brynn