Laser Cutting

Today I went to a Laser Cutting induction workshop and learnt to cut the net I created in Illustrator out of a piece of card using a Laser Cutting and Etching Machine. I opened the .DXF file I created in CoralDraw and scaled and after setting the canvas size to the same size as the machine I was using I scaled and rotated the net so that it fit easily upon the card I was using. The next thing I had to do was to adjust the laser height by using the focus tool, and the user interface on the laser cutter. After the laser was at the right height and position I then had to press print, select the laser cutter, and then, in advanced properties, select the type of material or card I was using before confirming the print. It cut really fast and neatly and was good fun to watch, and did a very good precise job. The mistake made was that the slots I created were too narrow once I rescaled the net to fit on the page, so that it wouldn't slot together properly because the card was too thick. I was also shown how to etch by changing the line from  a hairline setting to a solid black shape or line. Etching only partially cuts through the material, and if you were to convert an image to grey scale it would etch the shades into the image too (lighter=shallower, darker=deeper). I found the whole session very beneficial and look forward to using the Laser cutting room later in the project.