The telegraphics path area plug-in can compute path lengths, which is handy for determining transformer requirements.Relief SingleLine is a versatile sans serif “single-line” font with open paths oriented towards CNC (Computer Numerical Control) engraving and fab labs environments. Export it to Illustrator, scale it to the proper size, set the stroke to proper width (like 10mm or 12mm) expand stroke and it's pretty much ready to create a neon paper pattern. I'll scan the sketch and then digitize a single stroke path of it using Photoshop's pen tool. Often I'll just draw that kind of lettering by hand to get a proper balance of distance between each stroke. Scripts tend to be the biggest pain, especially if you're setting them into a small space. Obviously this is going to take more time than just typing out something already in a single stroke. Just a few edits on each character and you're done. It's easiest to perform the single stroke deconstruction technique on letters with very thin widths, such as Gotham Thin or Helvetica Ultra Light. Sometimes the blend function and path direction tools will be involved for creating true center line strokes while maintaining original letters. It just involves various anchor point editing tools. But it wasn't a very user friendly application and the guys who actually make our neon always wanted to make other adjustments, etc.įor the past decade I have taken the approach of deconstructing letters from a certain font using CorelDRAW and turning them into single stroke neon lettering. I don't think any fonts exist in a standard format (TTF, T1, OTF) that feature single, open path lines.Ī long time ago I used Neon Wizard, which featured some proprietary single stroke 'neon' fonts. My old pen plotters used to do it but I can't wrap my brain around it now. When engraved using my cnc router, each of these segments will result in a tool lift which I do not want.Īre there any true single line fonts for this? Quickly obtainable? Something I can do in Flexi? That is, a capitol letter B is made of four straight line segments (which is fine for my purposes) but the radius parts of the B is dozens of little curved segments. These things that I have are all just like autocad fonts in that they are made up of many single vector lines but they are just segments, not a 'point A to point B' line. i always thought they were fonts made up of a single vector line (not a filled stroke) so that an engraving machine or router can drop on the vector line and follow it around the letter, then lift out. I have a bunch of fonts on my machine that are designated 'engravers fonts' by their names.

I design with Flexi and toolpath with Aspire. I am making a small engraved plastic sign.

Single line fonts for cnc engraving