Shaper Assist… no more?

[rubber_ducky]

Anybody hear anything about shaper shutting down their assist program? I have a project where is could use some svg file help and would have loved to outsource to them, but I can’t find anything about the program on their site.

Seems that the previous url:https://shapertools.com/en-us/assist takes you to shapers main page.

This is unfortunate for me as I have little time or appetite to get to know inkscape.

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[afish]

What type of project? are you looking for 3d engraving?  Im not familiar with inkscape.  I do my drawings in cad and for the limited 3d work I have done I use Aspire but there is a place I know of that offers custom svg file work

 

[tjbnwi]

I had heard Assist is no more.

Any chance you could do your design in Shaper Labs? Real easy to use, just watch a few of the videos.
https://labs.shapertools.com

Tom

 

[rubber_ducky]

What type of project? are you looking for 3d engraving?  Im not familiar with inkscape.  I do my drawings in cad and for the limited 3d work I have done I use Aspire but there is a place I know of that offers custom svg file work

I have six templates in pdf format that are chair components. I imported the pdf into Inkscape and did a bitmap trace. What I was left with was two lines for each shape… an outside line and an inside line. This wasn’t a huge problem. I can do an outside cut on either line. Presumably the outermost line is more accurate.
However, many of the lines aren’t straight where they ought to be and some corners aren’t 90* …this is where I need help. Moving lines and corners in Inkscape isnt as easy as one may think it is.

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[rubber_ducky]

I had heard Assist is no more.

Any chance you could do your design in Shaper Labs? Real easy to use, just watch a few of the videos.
https://labs.shapertools.com

Tom

I may try this. Took a quick peek when I was looking for assist, and the shapes available looked like those that are on-tool. Though admittedly I didn’t look much further than that initial peek. I’ll take a deeper dive

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[afish]

Sounds pretty basic I would recommend trying to learn some software to use with the shaper first.  I know very little about the shaper, what types of files are compatible etc. Not sure if it has to be svg or if a dxf will also work etc.  Sounds like you need something to draw vector shapes. 

 

[Michael Kellough]

Maybe post the .pdf’s here? Might be simple for someone to convert to svg.

If you’re have a Shaper you should acquire a means of making your own svg files.
I only looked at Shaper Labs when it first started and it was too primitive then but maybe now…?

I’ve been using a costly 3D cad program for a long time but a few years ago balked at paying the cost of upgrades. Then I got a Shaper and needed .svg files which my older cad program couldn’t export. I found this inexpensive 2D cad program and now I only use the 3D cad for conceptualization.

ViaCad 2D is only $70.  https://www.punchcad.com/punch-viacad-2d-v12 

You can upgrade it to 3D/2D for another $100.

When importing pdf’s into ViaCad I usually get lines that can be used directly. When importing jpgs tracing is pretty easy. Once all the geometry is in cad all the parts can be justified and checked for fit and corrected.

Before exporting an svg I put a bounding box around all the geometry. It’s just a regular polygon with simple dimensions that makes it easy to scale the project correctly when importing to the Shaper.

 

[rubber_ducky]

Converting the pdf to an svg file isn’t the problem. It seems to me that the file was created free hand in that lines that are supposed to be straight aren’t straight (where two boards meet for example). I’m away from my computer at the moment but will post files here when i have access to them.

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[rmwarren]

Might try fiverr, seems like a lot of freelancers offer to convert designs to vectors. Essentially generic Shaper Assist.

RMW

 

[Michael Kellough]

Might try fiverr, seems like a lot of freelancers offer to convert designs to vectors. Essentially generic Shaper Assist.

RMW

Thanks for that link Richard. Never knew of this. My wife just finished a project doing that kind of work and it took weeks. Looks like she could have subbed out a lot of it via fiver worker bees.

 

[tjbnwi]

Shape shifter in Shaper Labs does a pretty good job expanding the capabilities.

My primary design program is Fusion 360, haven’t found anything I can’t design in Fusion.

Tom

 

[rmwarren]

Might try fiverr, seems like a lot of freelancers offer to convert designs to vectors. Essentially generic Shaper Assist.

RMW

Thanks for that link Richard. Never knew of this. My wife just finished a project doing that kind of work and it took weeks. Looks like she could have subbed out a lot of it via fiver worker bees.

I've not used it myself but on the surface it seems a great resource. I'm with Tom on F360, but everything I do is very structured, i.e. right angles, slots, holes etc. Toss in an organic curve and I'll careen over the edge. Freelance artistic types to the rescue.

RMW

 

[Rutabagared]

I use F360 for furniture (mostly making patterns).  But you can do a lot with geometric shapes in ShaperLabs and the on-tool design features.  ShaperLabs also allows you to download art/images for use.  You can manipulate their size, orientation, etc.  I made these simple signs using ShaperLabs and dowloaded images. 

 

[luvmytoolz]

I've used fiverr and while it's a great platform, I suspect for this case it might take an inordinate amount of time and back'n'froing to end up with a result you'll hope if right.

I agree with your comment on the difficulty level with Inkscape, I know people rave about it and I'm sure I'm doing it all wrong, but I struggle to get good results and don't find any part of at all intuitive.

If you don't want to train up for the Sketchup/F360 type path, using Vectric Cut 3D however is super easy to create dead accurate vector drawings.

Or even EstlCAM could be worth looking at for you, it's a pretty neat CAM/design package?