Looking for some graphic design advice/ assistance please

I have had an idea for a potential scroll saw Christmas present for a friend.

To illustrate I have posted the picture of a former project, a sheep basket, before and the template that it is cut from:


strong text

I would like to take the outline of a Vulcan bomber (friend is a member of the Vulcan Preservation Society !) and create a template to make a basket that drops down out of the body, but the template needs to be accurately centred on the design, and the incremental “layers/ rings” need to be a consistent distance apart to make it look right. Looking for something in the region of A4 size or thereabouts.

Wondered if anyone with graphics knowledge/ package might be able to advise/ assist a plan of attack as I have neither !!

Look forward to hearing from anyone who might be able to help.

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Hi Sally,

I could help but I’m outside the country until Wednesday with no access to my laptop to play around with it. If you haven’t found anyone by then happy to jump on a quick call and run through it :blush:

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In Inkscape, my approach would be:

  1. Find a SVG of the Vulcan OR trace a bitmap image into vector format
  2. Prepare the hole outline for the top layer
  3. Use Path Effects / Offset to create multiple objects of a fixed difference in size
  4. Make a duplicate of the bomber outline and combine it and each “hole” to create each of the layers for cnc’ing

I can provide more detail if you tell me where the gaps are.

I just had a go at it.

image

In step 2, I used an offset to create the “hole”.
However, it is going to need a lot of cleanup of the nodes because each successive offset will compound any detailed parts of the path. All the weird bits by the tail actually belong to the inner hole and exaggerated by the repeated offsets.

Definitely do-able, but just needs some careful treatment at each offset

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Thanks very much for responding - as you can see in the e-mail string Brendon has advised Inkscape might be capable of sorting what I need so I will have a crack with that myself. Didn’t think of using that, I’ve only got limited experience of it - I had expensive graphics packages in mind !!

If I need any further help I’ll come back if that is OK ?

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Hey Brendon, thanks for responding.

I hadn’t thought of using Inkscape for this - as you know I’ve not got a great deal of experience with Inkscape but I will certainly try and have a crack with it.

I’ll come back if I may when (not if !) I need any assistance !!

Cheers

Happy to MakerBuddy with you on this. We could do a zoon session, or find a time to meet at the space.

Of course! :blush: