Wacom Tablet

[joecrumley]

I am posting this message under the Corel location as I feel there is a good chance that some Corel users may have experience with a digitizing tablet.

We are up for the pruchase of a Wacom 2 9"X12" tablet to assist us in the drawing process for our signs.

The question I have is this. When drawing on a tablet, which is a vector, couldn't you set an offset to the file the size of the router bit to be used, and send it to SB Converter and start cutting? Wouldn't the router start at the beginning of the drawing? Couldn't you set tabs by starting and stopping the drawing?


Have any of you guys had much luck with the higher end 9"X12" pad?

While we use Corel some, most of the time we use Flexi Sign Pro.

Thanks

Joe

[danhamm@abccom.bc.ca]

Joe,
I have used the smaller pad from wacom..

You would set and offset from the tablet using
the contouring of the program and set the tabbing in the shopbot program.. usually just on the outline or cutout...which would be the last part
of the file or (files)
I have found that I can draw in corel faster and
more accurately than messing around after with
the tablet...and opinion only...

[kivimagi]

I'm trying to digitize a picture I have, but am having no luck with Corel Trace. Would anyone recommend using a digitizing tablet?? or is it my inexperience with Corel Trace.

[jeff_albro]

I've used a tablet to digitize a curvy picture before with success. The artwork was slipped under the clear cover. I then used AutoCAD with the polyline feature and added cubic or quadratic smoothing to the polyline. It worked well.

I also find the tablet a nice break from the mouse. Changing tools helps my arms.

-Jeff

[artisan]

Like Dan, I find drawing with the mouse and keyboard, faster than the tablet. I use the tablet mostly for renderings, but even then, it's hard to match my 21 inch monitor for clarity and ease of use. As for Ryan, Corel Trace is fairly easy to use, but requires some cleanup usually. Try increasing your contrast and desaturating your picture, before doing a trace. Another trick is to take your picture into Corel Paint. Once you have your image opened, the "Image" menu will appear on your toolbar. On the "Image" flyout, select "split channels to" and then "CMYK". This will break up your picture into four often very useful channels that are easily traced. Pick the one that suits you best and save it back into Corel. Open it up and trace. Hope this helps....D

[kivimagi]

That helped, but it still looks poor. I posted the image in the test section yesterday. I'm not sure if this is too difficult to start with or not.

[artisan]

This is a bit off of Joe's original subject, but here is a quick method for using Corel Trace for Ryan. I've seen your image in the test sections and it is simple to do.

1 import your image into Corel Draw on a New page.
2 Under "Bitmap", select "Trace Bitmap"
3 Under "File" in Corel Trace, hit "Return Results"
4 Select "Ungroup" and separate the original Jpeg from your new vectors and delete it.
5 "Select All" of your new vectors and right click on the color black (outline). Left click on empty or no color (fill)....the "X" at the top of the color palette.
6 You can now view all your new vectors as black lines and edit and clean them as you see fit....which is another whole lesson.

Happy cutting....you now have the power to trace most anything....D