Laser cutting single line fonts - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: MrOmnos
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 14, 2017, 09:08:25 am
content: Hi, everyone!! I am looking to cut something like below with a laser cutter.I am using Adobe Illustrator for designing purposes but I have run into a problem. I want a single line cut as seen above but the font has an enclosing stroke like an outline which means, laser will be cutting around the letter.But I want a single line stroke so laser will cut only once, similar to when writing with a pen. I want to technically 'write' with the laser.I also want the letters like R, O and A to be edited such that they don't make a hole which doesn't look good. I thought I would edit the font in FontForge.So, I found some constant stoke fonts from herehttp://imajeenyus.com/computer/20150110_single_line_fonts/index.shtmlBut they say, you can't be directly used to create a toolpath.Does anyone how to create toolpath with these fonts.

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 14, 2017, 09:14:20 am
content: The obvious solution would be to trace the letters with lines. It'll take some work, but gives a lot of control. You won't change the fonts much due to their constant width stroke nature.

author: MrOmnos
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 14, 2017, 09:30:37 am
content: I am also thinking that but I am not frequent user of Illustrator so I am afraid I am going to mess it up. Does illustrator have any tool to do it, are there any scripts that do it. If not I guess I will have to do it myself.

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 14, 2017, 09:53:24 am
content: Quote from: MrOmnos on December 14, 2017, 09:30:37 amAs far as I know it can trace images, but will always end up with a polygon doing so. That doesn't improve your sitation. I stand to be corrected, as I haven't worked with the very latest tools that come with Illustrator.

author: MrOmnos
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 14, 2017, 01:51:55 pm
content: Is there any other design programs that I can use for this which has default single vector fonts which would remove all this hassle?

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 14, 2017, 01:57:01 pm
content: Quote from: MrOmnos on December 14, 2017, 01:51:55 pmMaybe I'm missing something, but why don't you use the single line fonts that can be found on the page you screenshotted before? Those seem to fit your bill.

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 14, 2017, 01:58:31 pm
content: Did you find this Reddit?https://www.reddit.com/r/lasercutting/comments/4n5oya/anyone_know_of_free_fonts_that_are_suitable_for/

author: MrOmnos
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 14, 2017, 02:21:28 pm
content: Quote from: Mr. Scram on December 14, 2017, 01:57:01 pmTurns out Illustrator has something against single line fonts. I downloaded one called "Machine Tool Gothic" but when I type it in Illustrator this is what it looks likeThis is what it should look like

author: marshallh
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: December 14, 2017, 07:28:43 pm
content: Spend 20mins learning how to the use the Pen tool (bezier curves). You're just going to have to redraw the letters yourself. Good news is you can easily modify some trickier curves to be easier to cut.

author: 691175002
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: December 14, 2017, 07:39:59 pm
content: CAD software frequently has features for this since most manufacturing processes prefer to work with "stick fonts" or through the center of a fonts area.

author: metrologist
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 14, 2017, 09:02:56 pm
content: How are you going from Illustrator to your laser engraver machine code? Maybe F-Engrave will work. The "Normal" font appears to be a single stroke font and you can download some others for it.http://www.scorchworks.com/Fengrave/fengrave.html

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 14, 2017, 10:52:04 pm
content: Quote from: MrOmnos on December 14, 2017, 02:21:28 pmLooks like Illustrator is trying to fill what it thinks is a polygon.

author: MrOmnos
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 16, 2017, 12:58:27 pm
content: Hi, so my school has solid works and I started working on it. Any one here familiar with solid works?What I am doing is sketching a center line at equal intervals with equal spacing and using it to align the text. I center aligned the text and then tried using letter spacing to align the text with above text but increasing letter spacing is not that precise with 10% being the lowest increment you can make. I am new to slid works so, I don't know other way to do it. How do I do it?How do I align those letters?

author: MarkS
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: December 16, 2017, 09:01:55 pm
content: Convert the text to paths and set the line width to 0.

author: MrOmnos
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2017, 05:56:22 am
content: Thanks guys, I figured it out. I did it in solidworks. Solid Works has a single vector font built in called OLF SimpleSans. I converted my drawing on solidworks to dxf file and then imported in Illustrator. In illustrator I edited the font paths a bit so that that holes don't fall out when cut.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 24, 2017, 11:21:27 pm
content: Quote from: MrOmnos on December 14, 2017, 01:51:55 pmAll the vector font formats used these days areoutline fonts. The formats do not have any way to be stroke-based vector fonts (what you’d want for this), since the formats are not designed for it. The text rendering engines used by all our OSes are designed for outline fonts.The exception is the METAFONT format originally used with the TeX layout system. But becauseeverything elseuses outline fonts, almost no fonts were created in METAFONT format, which is why so many texts produced with TeX use the same few fonts. (TeX can also use PostScript fonts, and TrueType and OpenType with add-ons.) It’s fairly trivial to convert a stroke-based font to an outline font, but the reverse is damned near impossible.

author: MrOmnos
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 25, 2017, 06:53:37 am
content: Thanks, Solidworks supports single line fonts and Rhino also supports. Adobe softwares don't. So, if anyone looking to work with single line fonts, use solidworks or Rhino.

author: ggchab
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 25, 2017, 09:36:48 am
content: Someone has created some single line TTF fonts for CamBam :http://www.mrrace.com/CamBam_Fonts/

author: Dahlia
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: November 02, 2020, 10:50:35 pm
content: Hello,I needed a true single line font for a project I was doing and found a single line vector drawn alphabet in an svg file that worked great! You can't type these letters, but you instead have to place them in your drawing. I found it on Etsy at a shop called "my brand of weird." It's a fast machine cutting vector drawn "font"I found this after scouring the internet for hours.