I am a relative novice with Inkscape, I am learning, but, I'm stuck...

I am building sketches for use with my CNC machine and need to separate my vectors. I have a weird shape that I have drawn. I finally have my vectors all joined.

My problem is that within the main shape is a similar shape but slightly smaller. I need to be able to select only one of the shapes to remove it to be able to do different toolpaths with the CNC.. I have read and searched for too long and am getting nowhere fast.

I have attached a copy of the sketch and hope someone can tell me how to separate the two shapes into selectable shapes.

Thanks in advance.

Bob

For some reason, it's a Group of 1. So first, you'll need to Ungroup. After that, you'll need Path menu > Break Apart. Then, deselect everything. And now, you'll be able to select only the inner or only the outer piece.

The best friend of all Inkscape users, and especially new Inkscape users, is the status bar. No matter which tool you're using, or what you're doing with it, the status bar is right there.... I guess it's sort of like a play-by-play announcer.... Inkscapeball? Inksball.... Maybe vectorball would be better?

Maybe I need some sleep.... Anyway, just a tip, about the status bar

brynn wrote:For some reason, it's a Group of 1. So first, you'll need to Ungroup. After that, you'll need Path menu > Break Apart. Then, deselect everything. And now, you'll be able to select only the inner or only the outer piece.

Or take the node-tool select what you don´t need and hit backspace to delete.

Cheers
P.

PA: and you might want to check out the Fillet/Chamfer Path-Effect - which give you a nicer transition from straight to curved segments:

(I can't find the Fillet/Chamfer path effect in 0.91 - do you use the devel version, Polygon?)

Polygon wrote:PA: and you might want to check out the Fillet/Chamfer Path-Effect <snip>

Please keep in mind that the Fillet/Chamfer LPE is not part of any stable release yet (IMvHO it's not helpful for new Inkscape users to be teased with features of unstable development snapshot builds - at least not without giving that context).

As much as I love your build - I´ve lost the track of what´s official released and what is experimental implemented. So I´d better stay away from such a forum. BTW: what you called "unstable dev snapshot" never crashed on me - not in over 1 year of heavy use.

Bye.

Polygon wrote:Bye.

Please stay. I found your comment about the Fillet/Chamfer LPE interesting ! Its a feature im very much looking forward to.

Thanks guys, appreciate the help.

Question re the red outline, it looks great and has a better curve than I could manipulate myself. I should be able to copy and save as an image, convert to vectors and capture it from the resulting vector file, correct?

Yes indeed, worked like a charm.

Thanks again for your help

Bob

Polygon wrote:As much as I love your build - I´ve lost the track of what´s official released and what is experimental implemented. So I´d better stay away from such a forum. BTW: what you called "unstable dev snapshot" never crashed on me - not in over 1 year of heavy use.

Bye.

Well that's no reason to leave a forum! Some people use the stable release and some people use a dev version. If someone forgets which feature goes with which version, usually someone else will make the clarification.

Please don't consider ~suv's comment as any kind of reprimand. She's just making a clarification. As someone who deals with a lot of newbie questions, day after day, and year after year. It's not surprising that she wants to try to prevent confusion.

Please stay!

BobHewson wrote:Question re the red outline, it looks great and has a better curve than I could manipulate myself. I should be able to copy and save as an image, convert to vectors and capture it from the resulting vector file, correct?

It's certainly better than nothing. But it would be better if you could draw it fresh. I haven't used the dev version, so I don't know how hard or easy it would be, to use that particular LPE.

But since Inkscape is free, and generally LPEs aren't hard to use, and especially considering there are plenty of people in this forum who use the dev version, so you could get help if you needed it -- I'd say, why not give it a try? Especially if you're cutting something, you'll want it to be as precise as possible.

(Who knows? Maybe Polygon will change mind, and help you with LPE, if you need it?) (But if not, others can )

Espermaschine wrote:

Polygon wrote:Bye.

...I found your comment about the Fillet/Chamfer LPE interesting ! Its a feature im very much looking forward to.

Is there anything I can tell you about it? It´s dead simple - a file of genius though.

Cheers
P.