I have some paper templates that I have used over time to create curved wall sconce's  for outdoor lighting. I want to input them into Corel Draw in order to make a plt file and then gcode files for my plasma cutting setup. This is a question on how to make Corel Draw give me what I need for the plasma cutting. I traced the template with a sharpie pen and then scanned the image into the computer. The pattern is a floral design which contains a number of petals. A petal would be cut with the torch leaving a part of it attached to the base metal so it can be bent out a little. In terms of shapes, it is a open curved object, ie is not closed. When I use the trace feature, it does create the trace however when I export it to a plt file, the cutting path is going to go around the inside and the outside of the lines making up the petal. I do not want it to double cut, just make it do one cut path for each shape. Can anyone help me ? I have done other images by using Corel and one of the irregular tools to lay a new object over the scanned image but it takes forever to do. It seems the trace tool should be able to give me a single trace for a line. BTW, I used line art as a selection on the trace setup. Also tried others to no avail.

Thanks for any assistance.

why not scan your image in,  open it in Corel  create a new layer and trace it?  Creating the vectors that you want.  Then saving just that.   I can do it in Autocad.  Just not to familure with Corel Draw.

The tracing method in another layer does work however it is time consuming and I thought this great program would have a solution. They sell it with the power trace function but it seems to want to make a closed object which ends up making a plot that goes around the object twice. Once on the inside and once on the outside.


Thanks

anything that I have seen that does the "TRACE" method  always creates CLOSED vectors.  I think I have tried them all looking for something that yeilds descent results.   Without all the jagged lines.   Now I just trace the pictures myself.   Takes alot longer,  but then with the clean up time it took to make something that was traced  work.... welll its not really that much longer.    What I would do,  is as you use them  creat the lines for them and save.   Eventually you will get them all done.

You may be able to change the outline (after tracing) to "Hairline", although the best way to get what you want is to trace it manually with the "Bezier" tool.  Drop just enough nodes to make the shape, then use the "Shape" tool to tweak the shape.  Change nodes to a cusp, smooth, or symmetrical and drag the handles to fit the shape.  Make the line thickness larger while working on it and when finished, change it to hairline.

I've never had much luck with any tracing program giving me what I really wanted without a bunch of clean up and reshaping anyway.

Once you get the hang of tracing with the bezier tool, it will take less time and you'll have what you want. 

Thanks  everyone for the suggestions. I guess I am going to hand trace everything from now on and try to get faster at it.