Cowboy Sitting on Fence DXF Design

[jwilson]

I have been asked to convert this picture into a silhouette of the gentleman sitting on the fence. I have converted it to an svg but I do not have the knowledge to make this into just a black silhouette so that I can cut it out for them. Any help and or advice would be greatly appreciated.

CL silhouette.jpeg.2023_01_31_08_36_46.0.svg

[Larry83301]

See if this helps out.

silhouette.jpg

Larry

[jwilson]

Thank you Larry. This is better. Do you know how I could go about turning the gentleman and the fence solid black?

[ben de lappe]

Hi jwilson!

Here's how I learned to handle this stuff as I could NEVER get anything worthwhile from a trace. By plotting nodes manually one can achieve much better results than any auto trace. Below is a link to a short video of this process and while I'm at it the resulting file. Saved as .svg and scaled to 14.5"x18". Of course scale to your liking.

Cowboy Sitting_Fence.svg

[jwilson]

Ben, YOU ROCK! Thank you so much!

[adbuch]

Great work Ben! Very nicely done - I watched your video and you make great use of that right mouse button, which is so very handy for switching back and forth from curved to straight lines.

David

[plasmanewbie]

Nice Ben

[ben de lappe]

Ben, YOU ROCK! Thank you so much!

You are most welcome! My intent was not to just give you the file. I was hoping to explain some of the process and provide some clarity however I don't feel that's what's happened so I'll attempt to answer your question regarding "turning the gentleman and the fence solid black".

This is dependent upon the software you are using but the short answer is that's how the software "reads" the drawing. All one must do to achieve this is have a complete outer profile, the software will handle interior details accordingly.

It would help to know what software you're using as they all have different names/functions and asking in the appropriate software forum will likely yield more answers.

Get in there and practice. A good way to see what I've done is to pull in the original image and the drawing, scale the image up until the drawing is an exact overlay. Learn to manipulate the various aspects as your program allows and don't get discouraged. If I can do this there is hope for everyone.

[jwilson]

Ben, YOU ROCK! Thank you so much!

You are most welcome! My intent was not to just give you the file. I was hoping to explain some of the process and provide some clarity however I don't feel that's what's happened so I'll attempt to answer your question regarding "turning the gentleman and the fence solid black".

This is dependent upon the software you are using but the short answer is that's how the software "reads" the drawing. All one must do to achieve this is have a complete outer profile, the software will handle interior details accordingly.

It would help to know what software you're using as they all have different names/functions and asking in the appropriate software forum will likely yield more answers.

Get in there and practice. A good way to see what I've done is to pull in the original image and the drawing, scale the image up until the drawing is an exact overlay. Learn to manipulate the various aspects as your program allows and don't get discouraged. If I can do this there is hope for everyone.
[/quote]


Ben, I use inkscape for the artsy kind of stuff. I am not good at all with cad. My cad software that came with the machine is qcad The local guys that have tables tell me it's "way different" than the versions they have so they haven't been a lot of help. I was able to watch your videos, they were a big help! I was able to use the same concept in inkscape to do a design fora local person wanting to memorialize her late husband who was a world champion steer tripper.

buster tripping.PNG

[ben de lappe]

Bravo jwilson! I'd say you've got it despite the challenges you mention. If you keep at it with work like that you'll put me out of a job.
Thank you for the update and the pic. Fine job!

[adbuch]

Jwilson - great job on that Inkscape manual trace! You've made some great progress in a very short amount of time. I too use Inkscape for most of my manual traces, as well as auto trace. I recently purchased TMCad, the software that Ben is using - and I like it quite a bit as well, although the process is slightly different that the one with Inkscape. One of the things I like about Inkscape is that you can turn the image you are tracing on and off whereas TMCad does not have that capability. There are work arounds though. But I think it is just whatever you are used to and comfortable with. Keep up the good work.

David