VisiCut manual
This manual needs work, please contribute if you can.
If you find that VisiCut does not do what it should, please create an Issue instead of documenting the workaround here.
Visicut supports the following filetypes: svg, dxf, eps, ls (laserscript), ...
Please note that some files, especially svg, should better be opened from the Inkscape extension.
Especially when using inkscape, it is recommended to use the VisiCut extension instead of opening the svg file directly from VisiCut. The extension does some cleanup, converts text to path etc.
In VisiCut, select Extras -> Install Inkscape extension... to install the extension to Inkscape. Then you can restart Inkscape, open a file, Extensions -> Lasercut -> Open with VisiCut.
If you have selected one or more objects, only these will be sent to VisiCut.
TODO document the illustrator extension
For each combination of material and thickness, different laser settings (speed and power) are stored for each laserprofile (cut, engrave, etc.).
The mapping determines which objects are cut, engraved or ignored.
It is easiest to map by color, e.g. cut red objects, ignore blue ones and engrave the rest.
TODO
The operations like cut, engrave, etc. are not fixed, but you can edit them and create custom ones. For example if you cut with too low power, you just mark the material.
The default laserprofiles are:
Cut: Cutting through the materials.
Mark: Leaving markings on materials by cutting with less power or more speed.
Engrave: Take a bitmap and "dither" it to black or white pixels (using different algorithms with different results: Dithering algorithms)
Then make a raster job where every black pixel is "laser-on" and every white pixel is "laser-off"
Resolution: Resolution of conversion. Lower resolution makes bigger pixels and less vertical lines. Less vertical lines means you might see the actual lines and you cut less deep. See following image, top gradient was 500dpi, bottom 200dpi.
The LAOS firmware does not support engrave 3d by default (yet), there is only some old code, converting the raster to a vector job it also doesn't overshoot, making it cut deeper at the edges. I do not know if it works properly, because this mode is rarely used. The Epilog cutters however fully support engrave3d.
You can adjust the settings of every laserprofile. Below are the properties. You can add multiple treatments to one profile, which is useful for cutting very thick material in two steps.
Some settings are only available on certain lasercutters.
Power: Which percentage of max power should be used.
Speed: Which percentage of max speed should be used.
Focus: Focus of the laserbeam. Focus is counted from the top of the material, highter numbers mean greater distance between focus lens and object. Focus -1 means that the focus is inside the material, 1mm below the surface.
Frequency: TODO
Ventilation: Whether the Lasercutter should ventilate.
Purge: TODO
TODO (but it should be easy to understand without documentation)
With VisiCam you can see your lasercutter bed as an image inside VisiCut and use it for positioning your objects. If setup correctly, the precision is within some millimeters.
See: https://github.com/t-oster/VisiCut/wiki/LaserScript
TODO
See also How-to-add-default-settings-for-your-lab
These properties are often specific to the device type that you use.
Additional space per Raster line: How much the laserhead overshoots the drawing so it can accelerate and deaccelerate. This makes sure the laser doesn't engrave deeper towards the edges because of speed differences.
Debug output file: If you fill in a filename here VisiCut will create a text file with the code that's send to the lasercutter. This file is placed next to the Visicut.jar file. In the case of OS X you'll find in by right clicking on the application and selecting Show Package contents. Then you'l find it in Contents/Resources/Java.