You may have noticed that only the edges of your graphic are converted to paths, and therefore to Gcode. While this is desirable in some situations, like for cutting shapes out of your materials, we sometimes want to fill the shapes so they look like the original image, not just a hollow trace.
Here is how:
- you need to download and install the KM-Laser extension (for Inkscape 0.92, for Inkscape 1.0)
- and learn how to fill your shape with lines by watching this video tutorial:
There are three options you can/should tweak:
- Hatch spacing: first reduce your shape stroke thickness to very low, so you can see the actual paths clearly. Then enable live preview and try out different spacing for your desired effect.
- Hatch angle: commonly use 0 or 45 degrees.
- Crosshatch: cross-fill or one-way parallel fill. Note that cross-fill is twice long as parallel fill.
It is that easy! After filling your shape, generate Gcode using the LP extension and optionally inspect your generated Gcode on https://ncviewer.com/ before engraving. Note that you may find your Gcode paths not centred to the origin or seem in an odd position. Don’t worry, that’s expected for some LP models.
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