getting accurate vector lines out of blender what's up I'm Jonathan and
welcome to Maker Tales where I'm sharing my maker journey to help you go further
in yours so don't forget subscribe and that little Bell icon to never miss an
opportunity to keep making I'm happy to introduce outline to SVG a free blender
add-on developed solely for exporting sub millimeter dimensionally accurate
vector files out of blender to later be used in other applications such as laser
cutting CNC and graphic design installing outline to SVG is like any
other blender add-on with one small difference it works in conjunction with
Inkscape 1.0 to export a usable cohesive SVG file this means that you will need
Inkscape installed in order to point the add-on to the Inkscape executable file
step 1 install Inkscape 1.0 don't worry it's free the link is down in the
description is as simple as going to the site downloading and following the
instructions step to download and install outline to SVG click the link in
the description and download the whole folder this will give you a file that
will have to be unzipped which contains a small text file with some information
about the add-on along with another zip file which is the add-on itself which
does not need to be unzipped step 3 install outline to SVG in blender once
install and activated inside a blender it will request the file path directory
of the ink escape executable file these here are usually the file paths for both
PC and Mac using outline to SVG is just as simple step one click the setup
camera button this will setup a top view orthographic camera which is the
exporting system a small word of warning though moving this camera manually will
give you off scale and weird results step 2 click the view camera button to
see the capture area of the exporting camera increase your desired capture
camera area to fit what you need to export I suggest that you keep this in
multiples of 50 or 100 by using the slider below and
be sure to set the correct units of measurement for your setup step 3
depending on your preferred vector editing program you will need to set up
your DPI for exporting at the correct scale Inkscape works on a value using a
96 and illustrator is 72 changing this value also controls the overall scaling
and accuracy of your export step 4 select your desired file destination
folder and then select everything that you like the outline of to be exported
as an SVG then decide if you'd like to export this as every object individually
on its own SVG file or all together as a total SVG file via the drop down menu
step 5 click export and let outline to SVG do the rest this can sometimes take
a good 5 to 10 to 15 seconds depending on the complexity of your project
outline to SVG currently supports NURBS surfaces texts single surface meshes 3d
meshes meshes with active modifiers and exporting overlapping meshes as a whole
outline or individually depending on the drop down menu choice just a small word
of warning for those who are just starting to use Inkscape like myself the
dimensions that you see here aren't correct the exact export because
Inkscape adds the stroke width to the actual vector with itself so this means
that if you turn the stroke width to zero you see that this is a perfect
export most laser cutters have a stroke with default setting so I know that for
some it is 0.001 and for others it's 0.025 just check within your community
to find out which is the right stroke for your laser cutter here's a small
practical example of outlined to SVG in use if you'd like to know how to design
this example check out my finger joint box video this add-on has been made
possible by the wonderful people over at my patreon
if you have found this add-on useful I would love to have your support to
further develop and maintain this add-on alongside other creative and precision
based add-on solutions consider supporting me through patreon or giving
me a token of your appreciation through the PayPal link below I really do hope
outline - SVG is as useful to you as it has been for me and opens up lots of
potential in your creative workflows if you have any feedback or suggestions I
would love to hear them via the Google form linked in the description thanks
for watching keep making and let the quest continue