Illustrator is one of the many programs people use not only for sketching, but also for blue printing new custom designs for vinyl and laser cutters. As an example my key chain tag has been made on this program.
I started with a basic round rectangle and made the outline red in order to cut it out. After that I made the outline thin to make it a precise cut through the material. From there I looked up black and white clip art to trace into a traceable image for the laser to sketch on the surface. When the rendering and settings were done I saved the file on to a flash drive. I inserted the drive into the computer and aligned the laser and design to the materials for the cutter. I loaded up the materials list and set the laser to cut acrylic plastic and the thickness of the material. Once the settings were confirmed and set up I turned on the machine and activated the fan to remove the fumes. I closed the top of the container as a safety precaution. In order to make sure every thing is going well I stayed close to the machine with my hand over the space bar to stop the program. As it turns out the key chain had no flaws that it was perfect on the first attempt. If it were to fail I would try again with corrected settings until I had it perfect. Any way it would have gone it is a piece of custom art I'll keep forever. |