Copyright © Crane Softwrights Ltd.
Development: https://github.com/CraneSoftwrights/board-baseball
Tip jar: https://paypal.me/CraneSoftwrights
Browser pages:
https://cranesoftwrights.github.io/board-baseball/en/design.md.html
In this design/ directory
is information regarding the SVG design files, what is needed for
them, how they are expected to be used, and how to prepare them for
creating the ../burn directory
files and release through the tools found in the ../build directory.
The process of a release creates a number of burn and print
files in the ../burn
subdirectories that reflect the content of the design SVG file.
Thus, as soon as the SVG file is touched, the burn files no longer are guaranteed to reflect what is in the SVG.
When starting new work after a snapshot has been moved to QA for
testing, be sure to delete all files except the
README.md file in the ../burn/svg directory and the
../burn/pdf directory. This
way anyone visiting the site will find files only in the QA branch
and main branch.
Also, the version number in the SVG file needs to be changed early in two different layers (one for print and one for burn) so there is no confusion regarding the SVG file not reflecting the published files. See the “Update the version string” subsection below for details.
The Inkscape application helps to manage layers of content. The “Layers and Objects” panel reveals:
The typical format of the way a detail layer is labeled is:
L#:B# representing:
L#{level of the physical
board}:B#{burn index for the level}
The actual components of the label before and after are arbitrary and can be in any format. As described below regarding assembly, labels are collected by the label prefix; the label suffix is used only for distinction.
These design files use the “Noto Serif” and “Noto Sans”
available for free from the https://fonts.google.com/noto
site. The compressed and extra-compressed font variants are used
predominantly.
As part of the production process, all text in the review copy of the design file is converted to paths and so there is no need for the PDF reading tool attached to the cutting machine to have these fonts pre-loaded.
It is assumed that in the PDF file sent to the laser cutter, a stroke with a stroke width of .001in is a “cut” instruction to device. Otherwise, the surface of the material is etched. No consideration for colour is made in the etching.
For design management purposes, all SVG strokes with magenta #ff00ffff stroke paint, regardless of stroke width, are interpreted in the production process as needing to be converted to have a stroke width of .001in. During design these strokes are drawn with a stroke width of 1.5mm assuming that to be the (generous) width of the laser kerf.
These are the steps undertaken to make a final release suitable for checking into QA for testing. They are documented to help the developers remember to do everything, since there are many steps that need to be followed.
Remember to save frequently as Inkscape appears to crash easily when working with layers.
Update the version strings (two), one for print and the other for burning.
Look in the “Layers and Objects” panel for the two layers with “+ version” in the layer name. Un-hide the layer but leave the layer locked. Open up the nested groups until you find the text string labeled “Version”. Select it and press “3” to zoom in on the string. Press “T” to enter text mode and make the change. Press “Esc” to get out of editing the string. Hide the layer again.
Assembling design layers into combined levels is accomplished by naming conventions used in the layer titles in the SVG. These combining layers should be empty because they are replaced in their entirety during the production process.
Individual design layers include labels as described above for
levels but can be any pattern of
{label}:{distinction}.
A combined layer’s title directs the assembly of all of the
layers in the order needed. The beginning of the title is the
assembly name, followed by an equal sign “=” (separated with
spaces), followed by as many {label}:* indications, in
order and separated by spaces, of the collections of SVG layers to
assemble. Consider this example:
L1-crop-9x12 = CropMarks9x12:* Crop9x12:* L1:*
In turn, collages also are empty layers that use the same conventions in the layer title to pull in assemblies:
13-9x24-collage = L1-crop-9x12:* L3-crop-9x12:*
Tiling-9x24:*The actual assembly is accomplished in the production steps by XSLT stylesheets that read the design SVG XML and output a review SVG XML of all assemblies. This process is very quick and so it makes sense to use it to create the assemblies for review.
The review SVG file is then burst into individual SVG files, one for each collage and print assembly. The collage and print SVG files need some manual intervention before converting the SVG files to PDF using the synthesized batch script. The resulting PDF files need some manual intervention to orient them as desired for the laser cutter, as well as a one-last-time review of their accuracy before use.
Close the design-board-baseball-crane.svg file to
prevent it from being disturbed. And if it does get disturbed, one
can replace it from the last copy committed to git.
Follow the instructions in the “Burn files” section in build.md regarding creating the
individual SVG and burn file collages.