Hello,
and welcome to the first of a three part tutorial series
which will teach you how to use a laser cutter.
This tutorial series was created at
the Transformative Learning Technologies Lab at Stanford University.
In our tutorials we will be using
the educational edition of CorelDraw
and an Epilog Helix laser cutter.
That said, most of the techniques
and settings that will be demonstrated
are transferable to other software packages
and laser cutters.
In part one of our series,
we will use CorelDraw to create a cheat sheet of laser cutter terminology,
part two, will explain the Epilog printing preferences,
and part three, will discuss
how to set up the laser cutter hardware for successful cutting and engraving.
Before we start,
I would like to mention that certain parts of this tutorial
will go very quickly and you may need to pause
and/or rewind to keep up.
Additionally, if you would prefer to read a transcript of this tutorial
alongside screen shots,
please visit the TLTL website where a copy is available.
Ok, let’s get started,
first open Coreldraw and start a new document.
On our computer we have already created a document preset for the laser cutter
which provides a page
that matches the dimensions of our cutter.
If you do not have stored profile,
you can input the dimensions of your engraver in the text input boxes below.
In our case this is 24x18 in (or 61 by 45.7 cn),
but different machines might have different cutting areas,
After your page is correct, press ok.
Before beginning to add content,
the first thing we would like to do is set our origin
to the top left corner
so it matches the epilog machine.
Before being able to do this,
we need to make sure the rulers are visible,
to check whether they are,
navigate to the view menu
and make sure the “rulers” choice has a checkmark next to it.
Once they are visible,
move your mouse to the top left where there is a small resize icon.
Click and drag this icon until you reach the top left corner of the page.
Once both the vertical and horizontal lines overlap,
let go of the mouse and your origin will be set.
After setting the origin,
we can start to add content to the page.
Start by selecting the rectangle tool
and then click and drag to make a rectangle anywhere on the page.
After completing your rectangle
navigate to the top left corner of the screen
where there are two sets of input boxes,
one for the object’s position
and one for the object’s size.
Additionally, you'll find a padlock icon
which signifies whether the dimensions are locked to each other.
If the icon is currently locked,
click it to unlock it now.
Then change the object size to 3 in by 2 in (or 7.5 cm by 5 cm)
Once the size is correct,
locate the rectangle in the upper left corner of the page
by clicking the center and dragging it into place.
After placing the rectangle,
proceed to the top of the screen
and choose“To Fit”
Which will zoom the screen to our rectangle
and make it much easier to see our work as we proceed.
Next we are going to add a circular to the top left corner of the card.
To do this first select the ellipse tool
and then drag to create an ellipse.
You will notice that when you first begin dragging,
the aspect ratio is not constrained
and you can make all kinds of ellipses.
Since we would like to create a circle,
we need to hold down the control key which forces the tool to create a circle.
After completing the circle,
navigate to lock icon near the object size boxes
and this time make sure the lock is in the locked position.
Once you have done so,
change the horizontal dimension to .25 in(or 0.5 cm)
which will also force the vertical dimension to change.
Now, move your circle into the top left corner of your rectangle.
At this point, we are going to ensure the rectangle
and circle will be cut by setting their outline widths to “hairline”.
Within CorelDraw,
“hairline” is the smallest possible outline width
and if set, the laser cutter will interpret the shape as a cut.
To set your outline width to “hairline”,
first select the pick tool which can be accessed using the icon
or by pressing control, spacebar.
Then hold down shift
and click each shape to select them both.
Now, navigate to the outline pen menu,
and choose “Outline Pen”.
After the dialog box appears, choose hairline as the width,
set the color to red and then press okay.
Next, right click the objects and choose “lock object”
which will prevent us from accidentally moving the shapes
as we continue to add content.
Now, we are going to add a small data table to our card.
To do so, we need to access the pen tool
which may be hidden under the freehand tool.
This is a good time to point out that many of the tools on the left
have little arrows in the bottom right corner.
These arrows signify other tools are available
if you click and hold on the visible tool.
As you can see, the Pen tool is located in the freehand tool menu.
After selecting the pen tool draw two vertical lines and two horizontal
lines in the middle of your card.
The pen tool works by single clicking
the point where you want the line to begin,
and then clicking again where you want the line to end.
If you want to keep the lines vertical or horizontal,
hold down shift before clicking the second time.
After making a line segment you will notice the pen tool
attempts to continue the line as you move your mouse away.
To stop it from doing so press escape,
now start a new line with a single click,
hold down shift and single click to end.
Press esc and start again, click, hold shift, click, esc. Click, hold shift,
click, esc.
When you are finished,
choosing the pick tool
and then dragging a rectangle that is larger than all the lines.
By doing so,
the software will select all of lines
with in the boundaries of your selection rectangle.
Once all of the lines are selected,
press F12 to access the outline properties
and then assign a with of 0.02in(or 0.5cm).
Now choose the text tool which will bring up the text properties
in the top tool bar.
Before clicking inside our rectangle,
change the font size to 16 pt.
This change will bring up a box which informs you that if you proceed
all new text will also be 16 pt.
This is fine so just press ok.
Now click in to top left section of your table and type “Corel”.
Next continue to use the text tool to fill
the remaining cells with:
Epilog, Result,
Hairline, Vector,
Cut, >0.001in. or 0.0025cm,
Raster, and Engrave.
When they are all entered you may need to adjust
the placement of some of your lines or text so there is no overlap.
When everything looks good,
we are going to assign different outline widths to the lines
and text.
First select the top horizontal line
and assign it an outline width of 0.04 inches (or 0.1 cm).
Next choose the three words along the middle line:
:“Hairline”, “Vector”,
and “Cut” and assign them a red hairline outline.
Also, remove their fill
by selecting the fill tool and choosing “no fill”.
Next select the bottom three words,
“>0.001”, “raster”, and “engrave”
and assign them a black outline of 0.015 in (or 0.04 cm)
additionally remove their fill using the tool.
We can now see the value of setting our hairlines to red
since it provides us with a simple visual reference
as to which words will be cut versus those that will be engraved.
With that complete, we are now finished with this tutorial
and have created a simple table.
which will help us to remember whether our lines will be cut
or engraved by the laser cutter.
The chart reads from left to right
with the top line being the categories.
As we can see,
if we assign a hairline to a shape
within Coreldraw the laser cutter will consider it a vector
and the result will be a cut.
On the other hand,
if we assign an outline that is anything greater than 0.001 in
(or 0.0025 cn) the laser cutter will consider it a raster
and engrave the shape instead of cutting it.
That concludes the first tutorial.
Remember if the video went too fast for you
please consult the written documentation on the TLTL website.
Once your file matches ours,
please proceed to the next tutorial
where we will discuss the printing preferences of the laser cutter.
Congratulations on making it this far!