So I made a radical decision… Since I could view the file in MeshLab, I just did a screen shot so I could get a nice, clean 2D version of it. Once again I tried a DXF export, but that one wouldn’t open in Inkscape either. I exported the STL from Google Sketchup as a DAE file, and was able to open that in MeshLab. I figured that as long as I was waiting, I’d try to get a format I knew would work.) On to the next idea. At this point I was still waiting to use the Laser Cutter so I didn’t get to try importing it on that machine. (Oh, and by “didn’t work” I mean I was unable to open the DXF file in Inkscape. I know how to load a DXF file into the Laser Cutter, so I figured I’m import this STL into Google Sketchup (via a plugin) and then export as a DXF (via another plugin) and that would be it. The file was an STL, which is meant for 3D printing, but we needed more of a 2D vector file. I know how to deal with that stuff… but 3D? It’s a whole new nightmare world!

I mean, I’ve been using Photoshop since version 1.0.7. Audio, video, markup, raster images, anything 2D has been pretty simple.

It seemed like a simple enough request… While at Milwaukee Makerspace we were discussing creating snowflakes on the Laser Cutter, and I mentioned that there should be some existing art on, but it was down that night, so I jumped over to Thingiverse and found this snowflake.Īs a bit of background, I’ve been pretty damn good at file conversions in the past.

Inkscape vector sketchup