Something to avoid creating in your laser cutting designs are ‘doubled-up cutting lines’. In Illustrator and Inkscape you can plainly see these as being a darker blue color to the others:

All that is required in these examples are single cutting lines, otherwise these lines will literally be cut twice, which is not best for the material, or our machines.

It is worth noting that where there are pieces to be cut out that are placed directly beside another, only one cutting line is required between them - or as we call them, a shared cutting line.

Double lines also increase the making cost in a file - the laser takes longer, as it has to cut these lines twice.

To remove double lines in Illustrator, you can use the Direct Selection tool to click on each of these lines, and then hit delete once. It should leave another line behind, paler than the one you had.

If you are using Inkscape, you can find instructions for removing double lines here.

If you have any problems removing double lines, please feel free to drop us a line at service-at-ponoko-dot-com and we’ll be happy to take a look at your file for you.