Case Study

Innovation meets artistry,
producing an award-winning,
mass-engraving solution
Overview
Name: Leonardo Di BenedettoCompany: Artesà
Location: Barcelona, Spain
Industry: Engraving
Product: CorelDRAW Graphics Suite
A gun barrel casing engraved with the Artesà“Along with the good reputation of Corel as a company
and CorelDRAW's cost-effectiveness, one of the main
reasons we chose this product is that it's so well known in
the graphic design world. And that benefits customers
buying the Artesà.” – Leonardo Di Benedetto

hundreds of objects is usually not feasible. However, conventional
mass-produced engravings cannot reproduce the same level ofquality and beauty, because the techniques used are very different.

As Leonardo Di Benedetto accepts the silver medal for innovation
at the International Exhibition for Inventions in Geneva, he knowsthat he and his company have taken a big step forward. But more
important than the prize itself are the interest and admiration hismachine is receiving from the exhibition visitors, especially artisansand professionals from the prestigious Swiss watch industry. Afterthe event, the CEO of the Barcelona-based firm Artesà knows that
there's no time to lose – customers are waiting for his interesting
invention, which now needs to be manufactured and marketed.
That was in April 2008, but innovation has always been a part of
Di Benedetto's life. Listening to master engravers and customers,
he realized there was a market for a machine that could reproduce

Engraving designs in progress using CorelDRAW

Technical Prowess Based on Artistic Skills
This conundrum is what started Leonardo Di Benedetto thinking
about how engravers actually work. When engraving an object byhand, the artisan performs a downward and upward scooping
movement with the chisel each time a cut is made in the surfaceof the object. So Di Benedetto set about designing a machinethat would work in exactly the same way. The result – the prototype presented at the Geneva inventions exhibition – was theArtesà. Unsurprisingly, the name comes from the Catalan wordfor hand-crafted. The machine is a real innovation in that the lines
it engraves imitate the artisan's approach, using a curvilinear oropen polygonal trajectory achieved with non-rotating cuttingtools. The finished product is a design that has thebrilliance and precision of a master engraver's work.

Engraving designs in progress using CorelDRAW

intricate designs on jewelry, hunters' rifles, watches and otherobjects. For one or two articles, hand engraving is the perfectsolution. However, many customers need the same quality
produced in large quantities – especially for jewelry and objects
that can be given to customers as business gifts. Hand engraving

Alongside the engineering design of the Artesà machine itself,
Leonardo Di Benedetto needed to find a way to produce thegraphic design on a computer, then communicate this to themachine. “Choosing the design solution was the easy
part,” remembers Di Benedetto. “I know the CorelDRAW
Graphics Suite well and have been using CorelDRAW sinceCase Study

as mechanical, electrical and electronicengineering, computing, communications,engraving techniques and graphic arts.
Nothing like it has ever been developed
before. So we took our time with the plug-in
and went through a lot of trial and error
before finally getting it right!” The company
intends to continue work on the software toadd features and functions in response to customer feedback andsuggestions.
Complete, Easy-to-Use Solution

Leonardo di Benedetto working on a design with his invention beside him

Version 5, which is about 15 years now! We decided to use
it as a CAD program to produce two-dimensional vector drawings,
and it does this job very well. With that part of the software solved,
we were able to concentrate our efforts on developing our own
CAM program. It's a CorelDRAW®
plug-in in Microsoft® Visual Basic
that pilots all the machine's movements.”
The company started by using
CorelDRAW® and Corel PHOTOPAINT® to identify and differentiate all the various types of lines
within the drawing. It is crucial tobe able to determine and control
the direction, the color, and thestarting and finishing point of eachline in the design in order to elicit
the appropriate response from themachine's engraving heads. This iswhere the plug-in comes in.

The Artesà is a complete solution that customers can implement
and start using rapidly. The machine itself is compact, and thesoftware is both easy and enjoyable to use while allowing users
to pilot all the machine's complex movements – even if they havelittle understanding of engineering. “Along with the good reputation of Corel as a company and CorelDRAW's cost-effectiveness,
one of the main reasons we chose this product is that it's so wellknown in the graphic design world. And that benefits customers
buying the Artesà. Using a familiar tool means that their learning
curve will be much shorter. They'll belearning to use a completely new typeof machine, so it's just as well that thesoftware side of things won't take up toomuch of their time.”
Future Projects: Top Secret!

© 2009 Corel Corporation. All rights reserved 11/08 JB#1407-08

Since the prototype that won Leonardo DiBenedetto his silver medal for innovation in
2008, the Artesà has come a long way. It
has recently gone into production and thefirst machines will be delivered to customers in the first quarter of 2010. Each
will include a licensed copy of CorelDRAW
along with the plug-in Artesà CNC. So
what's next for Leonardo Di Benedetto?
A few examples of the beautiful engravings produced“In the short term, we'll be staying closeby the Artesà machine. The letter S is an original design
to our customers to glean all their comby Sam Alfano, www.MasterEngraver.com
ments about the Artesà and incorporate
Multiple Disciplines in a Compact Machine
their feedback in our solution as far as we can. Looking further
The CAM plug-in – called Artesà CNC – takes the input fromahead, I'm thinking up some new innovations but keeping themCorelDRAW, converts it into 3D tool paths, and controls all thesecret for now!”machine's movements to reproduce the design as faithfully as
possible. The engraving heads turn and move up and down theobject in the same way as the artisan with a chisel. “DevelopingTo learn more about CorelDRAW Graphics Suite, visit
the plug-in was almost a project in its own right,” says Di Benewww.corel.com/coreldraw
detto. “After all, the machine combines a range of disciplines, suchUnitedKingdom