Vectorize

[Heather5E75]

Hello all! Excuse my ignorance, I'm not an artist or graphic designer 😞  I just want to know how to send my vectorized images to my laser cutter without the box aka the artboard around it. There are no tutorials for this for the ipad version yet. Thanks in advance!

[cksnod2]

I suppose it depends on which laser cutter you are using.  I am using a Glowforge, and SVGs exported from Illustrator on iPad do not come in with Artboard outlines.  

[Heather5E75]

Hmm.. I'm using the Glowforge as well and my SVGs do. If I'm bringing a bitmap into Illustrator, do you know what steps I should take to just vectorize it and send it to the Glowforge without the lines? No editing needs to be done, I just want to basically be able to cut the image. Your help is greatly appreciated. I've only had the iPad and the GF for about a couple of months. 

[cksnod2 · Accepted solution]

That is probably not your Artboard outline, that is your bitmap outline.  If what you want to do is cut a shape that corresponds to a shape in your bitmap, you need to create a vector cutting line for it.  Illustrator for iPad does not currently have Image Trace but it's pretty easy to create a cutting line using the Pencil tool.

Example:  place your bitmap on a layer, lock the layer, and add a new layer for the outline.  With a bright colored contrasting stroke of good size (I used 5 pt here), grab the pencil tool and hand trace the outline.

You can add anchor points with the Pen tool, then tweak the anchor points using the Direct Selection tool:

Now if you upload all this as is into the Glowforge dashboard, what you will see is this:

Personally, I would get rid of the bitmap before uploading the outline--it only causes confusion.  Or you can set it to Ignore instead of Engrave.

[Heather5E75]

That makes so much sense! Thank you so much for taking the time to do that and explain. I really appreciate it. I will try this way and let you know how it turns out! 🙂