Distort Text to Fit Inside Closed Vectors
How to distort text to fit inside of closed vectors in Vectric software. This lesson applies to Vectric VCarve, Aspire, and Cut2D.
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Video Transcript:
Hello everyone in this lesson, we're gonna look at how to distort text, to fit inside of different shapes. So this can be done with any text and any shape, and you can see for this example, we're gonna be using a heart shape with the word love, and then we're gonna show you how to complete this project.
So let's start off with a brand new project and this can be done in Cut2D, VCarve, or Aspire. So we're gonna set up a simple single-sided project. For this example, I'm gonna do 20 by 20 inches and I'm gonna click Okay. And to start off, we need text and we need a shape. So let's do our text first, so we're gonna go to the draw text tool. And you could choose any font you would like that you have installed on your computer.
And then up in the text box, I like to use all caps because it distorts better. So I'm gonna turn my caps lock on and type in love. And you can see this is a pretty standard font, but if you wanna get fancy with a cursive font or something, you can change that as well. And the text height doesn't matter too much because it will be distorted.
So you can leave that whatever it's at there and click Close. Okay, now we need a shape for the text to distort inside of. So you can either draw your own custom shapes. You can import external shapes, or you can go to the clip art library and open up the clip art folder, and then you'll see a 2D Vector folder.
And in here, you'll see a lot of common shapes that you can use. So for our heart shape, we can go to panel number 20 and you'll see this heart shape here. And if you double click on it, it will insert it right into the center of your project. And then from here, we can scale this, we can rotate it, you can change it around if you like, but I'm gonna leave it just as it is here.
And I'll just move it down some, so we don't have the overlap. And in order to get the text inside of the shape we need to use, what's called the distort tool. So in the transform objects, you'll see the option for distort selected objects. And in here we have three options, but none of these three options are gonna work with a closed vector.
So the option we wanna use is called between two curves, and that's gonna distort our text in between two open vectors. But right now we just have one closed vector. So we first need to cut this vector in half. So let's close this tool and we're gonna select the heart shape. And in order to cut it in half, we're gonna go to the node edit mode.
So if you type the letter N on the keyboard that will open up your node editing. And from here, you could cut it in half. So if there's already a node, like in this case, somewhere near the center, you can right click on that node and click cut vector. And that will slice the vector at that location.
And then we'll do the same thing on the other side, right click, cut vector and now you'll see, these are two separate vectors. We can even move one of these and you'll see they are split apart. And now they're two separate vectors. So that's one way to do it. Let me undo that. I'll show you another way in case you don't have a node in that location. So inside of the node, edit mode, you can right click anywhere on the line to cut it.
So if you want to do a nice straight line across, you can click up in the top ruler and drag down a guideline somewhere near the center. You can even place it exactly in the center if you wanted to. And then where the guideline intersects your vector, you can right click right there and click cut vector.
And that will insert a point and cut the vector right there. And then on the other side, you could do the same spot where the guideline intersects and cut the vector and there we go, we just split it at the center line there. So that is another way to split the vector if you need to do it that way.
Okay, so now we have our two open vectors and we have our text and that's all we need to complete this project. So now we're gonna go back to the distort tool and we are going to select between two curves and to use this, we need to first select our text. So we're gonna select that first, then hold shift and select the bottom open vector and then hold shift and select the top open vector.
And now after we select all three of those, we should get a green check mark here, and then we're gonna click apply. And when you do that, it will distort the text to fit inside of those shapes. And you still have the ability to edit this if you wanted to. So let's say this letter L is a little bit hard to see.
You can actually drag the nodes here and move around these handles, and you can actually change the distortion of that, uh, letter there. You can see, you can even grab any part of the nodes, and move them around and that will start to distort the shape some more. And that only affects the text and I'm gonna undo that.
So if you do something you don't want, just click, edit, undo, or control Z on your keyboard. And once you're happy with how it looks, you're gonna click bake distortion, and that's gonna convert it back to vectors where you can use to carve. And then click close and now your shape is ready to go. Now, if you don't like the way the letter L or the letter E on the ends, look, that could be changed by cutting the vector in a different location.
So if we undo this to come back to where we were before, and go back to our node editing, let's say we cut the vector up here, where we originally did it. That's gonna change how the distortion looks. Now, when we go through that process, again, going to the distort tool, select the text, then hold shift, select the bottom line and then the top line, and then click between two curves and click apply.
And you'll see the letter L and E look much different. And that's just because we changed the location of where they're cut on the closed vector. So you can play around with that to get it, to look exactly the way you want it to. And then once we're done, we're gonna click bake and click close. And now we are ready to carve this if you want to make a toolpath for this.
So what I like to do is if you want the original shape to cut out as well, I select both of those shapes, the open vectors holding shift, and I join those back together using the join tool. So click join. And then what I like to do is offset that shape a little bit, so when you cut it out it's not right against the letters.
So I select that closed vector go to the offset tool. I wanna go outwards with sharp corners and you could decide how much offset you want. I'm gonna go a quarter inch and click offset. And then click close and you'll see a brand new closed vector going outside of the shape. Now we're gonna switch over to the toolpath tab.
We are going to use the VCarve toolpath to engrave the text, and we are going to select all of our text. And I like to do a flat depth of 0.08 inches. I'm gonna use a 90 degree V-BIT with a quarter inch End mill to do the clearance. And let's just click calculate, and then we will preview both of those tool paths.
First, the clearance tool, then the V bit. And you'll see what that looks like engraved. Now we will go to the offset line, select that. Go to the profile toolpath and I'm gonna cut all the way through the material on the outside of the line. And I will add a ramp,and click calculate and preview that. And that is what the final product would look like.
And then we could double click on the waste to remove it, to see exactly what our sign would look like. ,And like I said, you could do this with any shape and any text and you can get really creative with this. And a quick thing to note is sometimes your distortion may not work the way you want it. And that could be because when you cut the vector, let's cut it again.
Your start points may be on the wrong side. So you could see this top section. The green point is on the left. In the bottom section, the green point is on the left as well. That is our starting point. Sometimes when you cut the vector, the start point may be on the wrong side. Let me switch this side by clicking, make start point on that side.
And if we try to do our distortion again, I'm gonna delete this text and add it in again. And I will show you what happens when you have the start point on the wrong side. So we'll go to the distort tool between two curves, select our two open vectors and click apply and you'll see the distortion does not look the way we want it to.
And that's simply because the start point is on opposite sides for each open vector. So to fix that, you just click edit undo then close down the tool and then select one of the shapes and go to the node editing. And you'll see which side the start point is on. Generally you want it on the left side, and then if we select the other shape, you'll see this one's on the right.
So you just wanna right click on the point on the left and click make start point. And then when you do that, it will fix it. So if we go through that process again, between two curves and apply, you will see it will fix the distortion. So that is how to fix it, if you ever run into a problem like that,
Okay, so hopefully these tips helped you out. And if it did make sure you like and subscribe for more.
So let's start off with a brand new project and this can be done in Cut2D, VCarve, or Aspire. So we're gonna set up a simple single-sided project. For this example, I'm gonna do 20 by 20 inches and I'm gonna click Okay. And to start off, we need text and we need a shape. So let's do our text first, so we're gonna go to the draw text tool. And you could choose any font you would like that you have installed on your computer.
And then up in the text box, I like to use all caps because it distorts better. So I'm gonna turn my caps lock on and type in love. And you can see this is a pretty standard font, but if you wanna get fancy with a cursive font or something, you can change that as well. And the text height doesn't matter too much because it will be distorted.
So you can leave that whatever it's at there and click Close. Okay, now we need a shape for the text to distort inside of. So you can either draw your own custom shapes. You can import external shapes, or you can go to the clip art library and open up the clip art folder, and then you'll see a 2D Vector folder.
And in here, you'll see a lot of common shapes that you can use. So for our heart shape, we can go to panel number 20 and you'll see this heart shape here. And if you double click on it, it will insert it right into the center of your project. And then from here, we can scale this, we can rotate it, you can change it around if you like, but I'm gonna leave it just as it is here.
And I'll just move it down some, so we don't have the overlap. And in order to get the text inside of the shape we need to use, what's called the distort tool. So in the transform objects, you'll see the option for distort selected objects. And in here we have three options, but none of these three options are gonna work with a closed vector.
So the option we wanna use is called between two curves, and that's gonna distort our text in between two open vectors. But right now we just have one closed vector. So we first need to cut this vector in half. So let's close this tool and we're gonna select the heart shape. And in order to cut it in half, we're gonna go to the node edit mode.
So if you type the letter N on the keyboard that will open up your node editing. And from here, you could cut it in half. So if there's already a node, like in this case, somewhere near the center, you can right click on that node and click cut vector. And that will slice the vector at that location.
And then we'll do the same thing on the other side, right click, cut vector and now you'll see, these are two separate vectors. We can even move one of these and you'll see they are split apart. And now they're two separate vectors. So that's one way to do it. Let me undo that. I'll show you another way in case you don't have a node in that location. So inside of the node, edit mode, you can right click anywhere on the line to cut it.
So if you want to do a nice straight line across, you can click up in the top ruler and drag down a guideline somewhere near the center. You can even place it exactly in the center if you wanted to. And then where the guideline intersects your vector, you can right click right there and click cut vector.
And that will insert a point and cut the vector right there. And then on the other side, you could do the same spot where the guideline intersects and cut the vector and there we go, we just split it at the center line there. So that is another way to split the vector if you need to do it that way.
Okay, so now we have our two open vectors and we have our text and that's all we need to complete this project. So now we're gonna go back to the distort tool and we are going to select between two curves and to use this, we need to first select our text. So we're gonna select that first, then hold shift and select the bottom open vector and then hold shift and select the top open vector.
And now after we select all three of those, we should get a green check mark here, and then we're gonna click apply. And when you do that, it will distort the text to fit inside of those shapes. And you still have the ability to edit this if you wanted to. So let's say this letter L is a little bit hard to see.
You can actually drag the nodes here and move around these handles, and you can actually change the distortion of that, uh, letter there. You can see, you can even grab any part of the nodes, and move them around and that will start to distort the shape some more. And that only affects the text and I'm gonna undo that.
So if you do something you don't want, just click, edit, undo, or control Z on your keyboard. And once you're happy with how it looks, you're gonna click bake distortion, and that's gonna convert it back to vectors where you can use to carve. And then click close and now your shape is ready to go. Now, if you don't like the way the letter L or the letter E on the ends, look, that could be changed by cutting the vector in a different location.
So if we undo this to come back to where we were before, and go back to our node editing, let's say we cut the vector up here, where we originally did it. That's gonna change how the distortion looks. Now, when we go through that process, again, going to the distort tool, select the text, then hold shift, select the bottom line and then the top line, and then click between two curves and click apply.
And you'll see the letter L and E look much different. And that's just because we changed the location of where they're cut on the closed vector. So you can play around with that to get it, to look exactly the way you want it to. And then once we're done, we're gonna click bake and click close. And now we are ready to carve this if you want to make a toolpath for this.
So what I like to do is if you want the original shape to cut out as well, I select both of those shapes, the open vectors holding shift, and I join those back together using the join tool. So click join. And then what I like to do is offset that shape a little bit, so when you cut it out it's not right against the letters.
So I select that closed vector go to the offset tool. I wanna go outwards with sharp corners and you could decide how much offset you want. I'm gonna go a quarter inch and click offset. And then click close and you'll see a brand new closed vector going outside of the shape. Now we're gonna switch over to the toolpath tab.
We are going to use the VCarve toolpath to engrave the text, and we are going to select all of our text. And I like to do a flat depth of 0.08 inches. I'm gonna use a 90 degree V-BIT with a quarter inch End mill to do the clearance. And let's just click calculate, and then we will preview both of those tool paths.
First, the clearance tool, then the V bit. And you'll see what that looks like engraved. Now we will go to the offset line, select that. Go to the profile toolpath and I'm gonna cut all the way through the material on the outside of the line. And I will add a ramp,and click calculate and preview that. And that is what the final product would look like.
And then we could double click on the waste to remove it, to see exactly what our sign would look like. ,And like I said, you could do this with any shape and any text and you can get really creative with this. And a quick thing to note is sometimes your distortion may not work the way you want it. And that could be because when you cut the vector, let's cut it again.
Your start points may be on the wrong side. So you could see this top section. The green point is on the left. In the bottom section, the green point is on the left as well. That is our starting point. Sometimes when you cut the vector, the start point may be on the wrong side. Let me switch this side by clicking, make start point on that side.
And if we try to do our distortion again, I'm gonna delete this text and add it in again. And I will show you what happens when you have the start point on the wrong side. So we'll go to the distort tool between two curves, select our two open vectors and click apply and you'll see the distortion does not look the way we want it to.
And that's simply because the start point is on opposite sides for each open vector. So to fix that, you just click edit undo then close down the tool and then select one of the shapes and go to the node editing. And you'll see which side the start point is on. Generally you want it on the left side, and then if we select the other shape, you'll see this one's on the right.
So you just wanna right click on the point on the left and click make start point. And then when you do that, it will fix it. So if we go through that process again, between two curves and apply, you will see it will fix the distortion. So that is how to fix it, if you ever run into a problem like that,
Okay, so hopefully these tips helped you out. And if it did make sure you like and subscribe for more.
