Trying to get Cricut to fill in parts of an svg file

[volvodr]

Sorry, new to this and have a question regarding .svg files. I’m trying to get a cricut maker, (basically a printer designed to cut vinyl, or draw with markers) to color in the spaces between the lines on an svg file. It takes the svg file that most people use to “cut” vinyl and makes iron-on’s for t-shirts. You can also tell it to “draw” the svg file on a piece of paper and it will draw the outline and you can then manually color the picture in with the markers and transfer It to the t-shirt.

The machine is not designed to color in the picture just do an outline. The thing is, I have an svg from someone that has a very small amount of the picture that looks like it is drawn in. In other words, if you zoom in closely the lines on these portions look like the marker has written back and forth to, “fill in” these sections. From the zoomed out view you hardly notice. It’s just a thick line, but none-the-less to me it looks like the machine has actually started to fill in the extremely small area. When I print this fie on the Cricut, it works with no issues.

What I’m trying to do is figure out how this was done and I think it may have something to do with the svg file. Is anyone familiar with how this process may have been done. To me it looks as if a computer would have been used to create the lines that have been drawn in. As far as I can tell, the software that came with the Cricut does not have a utility to do this. If you take a look at the file I have included you will see exactly what I’m talking about.

I know this may not be photoshop related, but I am hoping photoshop may be able to fill-in these areas in a way Cricut can understand and print. I have already tried with no success but my skills are limited.
Thanks in advance for anyone willing to take a look.
Tom

[jane-e · Accepted solution]

This was most likely done in Adobe Illustrator (vector) and saved as SVG (vector). If you have Illustator, you should be able to see how it was done using the Layers panel.

I just zoomed in on it and it looks like they used Scribble in Illustrator, which is an Effect that makes a fill appear as a stroke.

~ Jane

[volvodr]

Thanks a lot Jane!  I do have Illustrator and I'll take a look.

[jane-e]

Hi Volvo Dr.

I opened it in Illustrator (I was on my iPad before). It looks like they handpainted most of the purple and pink, as they vary from shape to shape. Then they made compound paths out of each color.

Make a copy of the file, then hide or delete the purple and pink layers. Copy the Mandela layer and lock it. Will the Cricut cut these hand drawn shapes or do you want to fill the shapes?

If you want to fill them, create your color palette first in Swatches, then make a Live Paint Group. You can then click in each region to fill it and use the arrow keys to change colors.

Let me know if you need more details once you decide how you want to procede. I'm sorry I can't help you with the Cricut. It's buried deep in my closet.

~ Jane

[volvodr]

Jane,

Thanks so much for the information and guidance.  I think your answer was spot on and probably is just about as close as I'm going to get but I'm still not giving up just yet.  Let me explain.  I was able to do exactly what you said and it worked, almost...

I ended up with my svg file, colored in folowing your directions using live paint.  It seemed as if everything should have worked properly.  Only thing is when importing into Design Space, (the program that Cricut uses, you can download it from the Internet), it imports everything initially as a cut file.  In other words with every "piece" ready to be cut. At this point the "pieces" still contain thier color information they're just on sperate layers which is what we want anyways.  As soon as you change any of these layers to a draw type, (which is what we want for all of them) the program deletes the color information and your left with only the cut lines, or outlines.  I guess it fugures it doesn't "need" the color information anymore. 

This still doesn't explain how the first picture I had was somehow able to convince the cricut to "color in" those lines in purple and pink, even if it was a very small portion.  In my mind, if it can color in a very small portion it should be able to color in the larger portions as well.

Anyhow, thanks for the help.  I think I'm on the right track.