SVG Export for Cricut Design space

[Nia0216]

Hi All, 

I have been using the trail for both Affinity Designer and Photo, just to see if it is everything I would need to design certain things to cut on my Cricut. I have been trying to export a SVG file so that I can use it within Cricut Design Space. Every time I try to import it, DS tells me that it has clipping paths that are not supported. 1st what is a clipping path? 2nd can I get rid of it so that I can import my svg? or 3rd is there something I am doing wrong. I have attached a copy of what I am trying to export/import.

things5.afphoto

[Gabe]

Hi @Nia0216,

Welcome to the forums. 

Have a quick look at this tutorial for Clipping vs Masking. 

 

Clipping involves positioning one layer inside another, creating a parent - child layer relationship. The path of the parent layer becomes the new boundaries for the child layer. Any areas of the child layer which lie outside the parent layer's path are masked (hidden).

In the example provided, you only have 6 pixel layers - nor vectors. Perhaps you uploaded the wrong file? 

Thanks,

Gabe. 

 

[Nia0216]

Hey @GabrielM

The file that I've uploaded is the correct file. Basically those layers are the characters Thing 1 and Thing 2. The red is the color of their clothes and the blue is their hair and the other layer is them. 

Now what I am trying to do is to be able to export them as a layered SVG file so that when its imported to my Cricut Design Space each character shows up as  3 layers; 2 with color and 1 with black outline. 

I could save as a png but then the file would be a flat layer. Saving as SVG would allow me to cut each layer separately. 

When I export and then import to DS it tells me that there are clipping path that are not supported.  But i should not have clipping path as all I did was import and svg file and then rasterize them. I don't see those path when I click on the layers.

Sorry if it sounds confusing. 

[dutchshader]

hello @Nia0216

i think the problem is that you are using pixel layers.

when i am creating cut files for the cameo silhouette they should be vector layers.

i think it is the same for the cricut studio files.

attached a svg created in designer, try this one in cricut studio.

cricuttest.svg

cricuttest.afdesign

[Nia0216]

omg, @dutchshader,

 

how did you do that? it worked. Is there a tutorial for svg created in afdesign?

[dutchshader]

In the forum tutorials section are designer tutorials

[Nia0216]

Thank you

[dutchshader]

This is a tut. for illustrator, the basics are the same for designer.

 

[firstdefence]

Got a bit of time while a video renders so I've converted the Zeus figure to an svg and afdesign file. The afdesign file also has history saved so you can scroll back and forth with the slider to see what I did.

I exported the bitmap component images to png files and used an app I have called Vector Magic to convert those bitmap images into vector shapes. (There are online converters like: https://www.vectorizer.io) that will do a similar job. I exported them to SVG.

 I opened the SVG files in Affinity Designer and copied the hair and pj's into the outline svg, I had to do a bit of tweaking of the hair and PJ's to they overlapped the black outline, then I made 2 duplicates of the black outline and used those duplicates to do a Geometry > Subtract to get a good match of the hair outline against the black outline (Tip: the black outline has to be above the hair when geometry > subtracting, this way you will be left with the hair clipped neatly. The same goes for the PJ's

Zeuss figure outline.svg

Zeuss figure outline.afdesign

[dutchshader]

@firstdefence,

my first thought was also to vectorize the drawing, but for a cricut cut file this needs a lot of work after.

the face is going to be cut out, so the mouth and eyes are all lose parts after cutting.

so the face would have to be solid, with the small parts subtracted

when cut out of different paper colors the small black parts are not cut out of the pj and hair.

 

[firstdefence]

11 minutes ago, dutchshader said:

@firstdefence,

my first thought was also to vectorize the drawing, but for a cricut cut file this needs a lot of work after.

the face is going to be cut out, so the mouth and eyes are all lose parts after cutting.

so the face would have to be solid, with the small parts subtracted

when cut out of different paper colors the small black parts are not cut out of the pj and hair.

 

Yeah, you have to think in reverse/negative sometimes, I was coming from a decal perspective, but card wise I get you need to have cleaner cuts. I help a friend out a lot with her crafting, she has the Silhouette Cameo 2 and sometimes requires fancy boxes, I've just started to design "wraps" "Patterns" for the boxes and I'm going to start selling them. I actually design the boxes in a 3D app to make sure they fit right. I did a box for some shoes she made with transparent panes so you could see the shoe. I actually like doing all that stuff, I could quite easily do that as a job.  

[dutchshader]

@firstdefence

i'm doing allmost the same for my wife, she sells hobby products for card making.

and i help her creating the cut files for the cameo silhouette 2 in designer, and this is fun to do.

         

 

[firstdefence]

1 hour ago, dutchshader said:

@firstdefence

i'm doing allmost the same for my wife, she sells hobby products for card making.

and i help her creating the cut files for the cameo silhouette 2 in designer, and this is fun to do.

         

 

Nice man card, she says men are hard to do cards for

[Nia0216]

@firstdefence and @dutchshader

 

You two are very talented. Right now I am a fish fresh out of water. I have not touched a designing program in 2 years as my iMac graphic card went. I was just able to get a mac mini (thanks to hubby) as I thought I would be able to use my adobe cs4 suite to find out that I can't. So all this is new again.

I will definitely be looking at the tutorials and the files provided to get more insight as I plan to design a lot of cut files.

 

Thank you for the help and being so kind.