Logo BMP to ILD convesion help needed

[njloki30]

Hey guys I'm a bit of a complete noob with laser control software and I can't seem to convert the attached BMP to a mono colored ILD file can someone please help. I can pay via paypal if requested. Thank you in advance for any help!

vinnie

[White-Light]

Just looking at it there's little chance of that scanning well in any case - too much text, so either the frame rate will be unusable or very flickery.

My advice would be to simplify it for starters.

Remove the Bar and Grill bit - all of it. Take the detail out of the shark eg the colour graduation and the contents of the sunglasses (leave them black inside), to leave just an outline. Remove the coloured area between the beachcomber sign and the sharks body so you have a bare shark shape + beachcomber sign.

Then I'd say you might have a chance of a trace resulting in a usable frame rate.

[njloki30]

Thank you for that feedback, I'll get started on updating the image and re posting. Thank you again!

[james]

You might want to try opening this in an image editor and fading it out so it prints on an inkjet really light. Then use that print to draw over with a pencil or marker to really simplify the lines. Get the image you want with the fewest features. Get rid of all the rough edges on the board. Maybe you could draw the font as a single line rather than a hollow outline. Then scan that drawing and clean it up. If you pick a color to use as your tracing marker that is not in the original, you can drop out all of the other colors and get a line drawing that is only the new trace. Then use that as a bmp to trace over.

[njloki30]

Is this better / usable?

[njloki30]

[james]

Try smoothing out the rough edges on the sign board and experiment with a single line font instead of the hollow outlines. Also note, there is no way to have a solid filled in area in laser art (well, almost no way). It's just thin lines.

You also might want to think about what colors to make the lines. Typically the outline colors indicate what the filled in colors would be if it was a regular printed logo.

Since you removed the text in the arc around the shark, do you really thing the arc adds anything to the image?

I know.... It's a logo and you don't want it to look too different from the original.

James.

[njloki30]

try number 3 . lol is this ok?

[james]

I think if you make his gills into single lines, you've got it!

What program are you going to use to turn this into vector art?

[White-Light]

I agree with James but I think I'd remove the ring and re-instate the Beachcomber sign as its the essence of the logo. You can always delete it if the frame rate is poor. Essentially you'd have a shark jumping over the sign then. The main key with the sign as James mentioned is single line text ie thin lines and no drop shadow and smooth the edges of the sign again with thin lines and no drop shadows. Sharp turns slow the scanners. Thick lines or drop shadows result in double line tracing which means the scanners have to draw 2 lines instead of one.

Also remove the little squiggle in the corner of the mouth because it adds little but requires the scanners to make some very sharp turns to draw the triangle.

As James mentioned you can use colour to separate the elements in the laser programme taking your cue from the original logo ie shark body blue or grey, sunglasses red, sign outline yellow, orange or brown depending on your preference and wording red. (LEAVE THE TRACING BLACK AND WHITE - COLOUR THE LINES IN THE LASER PROGRAM OF THE FINISHED LOGO).