Hello,

I made a CNC drawing plotter by following an awesome YouTube video.

I am using Inkscape to prepare the gcode files for drawing. I am using the path effect Hatches (rough) to fill in the object with lines so it can be drawn as such.

I have the following issue. I want to draw the Youtube logo and I want to use the path effect Hatch (rough) to fill in everything besides the triangle in the middle.

So the stroke lines in black will be drawn and the red fill will also be drawn with the path effect.

https://ibb.co/5gx6VdCY

However, everything is filled with hatches effect. How can I leave the triangle in the middle empty?

https://ibb.co/0y6gBCgj

The original svg is likely to contain a combination of groups and combined paths.

It's important to look at the status bar at the bottom of the Inkscape window, to see what kind of object (path, group, etc) you are working with.

The use Object>Ungroup and Path>Break Apart and Path>Combine

To achieve what you want.

Hi @inklinea thanks for your answer. 

According to the status bar, the SVG is group of 1 object. I followed the steps but it did not work :/

The snapshot you sent is exactly what I am looking for. I have also tried designing the logo myself in Inkscape (first the rectangle and then the triangle) but without success. I am a rookie at this 

What else can I try?

Thank you,

Anyone?

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/DGchexT-N9U I found this on Youtube but the creator does not provide any instructions.

Here the file I used and a video showing shortcut keys.

I'm moving between ungroup, select all, ungroup, select all, path>break apart, select all, path>break apart.

I usually check the status bar in each step.

Select all makes sure I have reselected and new paths created by ungroup or break apart

Then I clear the stroke and path of all the resulting paths using shift left click on the clear swatch (bottom left of Inkscape window)  to clear stroke colour, then just left click to clear fill colour.

Then select all, and set the stroke width to 1.

Then select the outer path of the inner triangle and the inner path of the youtube button perimeter.

Then path>combine.

Apply the hatch to that combined path.

With the units in the Hatch extension set to mm.

I chose 0.1 for hatch spacing and 0.1 for safety distance.

This might look a bit complex, however when you encounter a random svg in the wild it's what you have to do.

In some cases it might be good to switch between View>Display Mode>Normal and View>Display Mode>Outline during the process to see any paths without fill or stroke.

I just take a bit of practice to become good at it.

Hi @inklinea thank you for getting back to me and I appreciate your patience. I think we are getting there.

I followed the steps exactly and I got up to the point where I had to select the outer path of the inner triangle and the inner path of the youtube button perimeter. I did that and I did path->combine.

https://ibb.co/kVYhQSXY

https://ibb.co/Hf1JvjrC

I have the combined path selected and I go to path effect and click Hatch (rough) and this is what I get.

https://ibb.co/GBTJ56n

What am I doing wrong?

I think you have combined the incorrect paths.

Practice using a couple of simple shapes first, to understand how the extension works and good values for the hatch spacing and safety distance for the scale you are working at.

In the example I have attached.

I have created a central ellipse. Then copied and pasted in place. 

Then created a 2nd larger ellipse.

Combined path the larger ellipse with one of the smaller ellipses and used the hatch extension.

I had to adjust the hatch spacing several times to get a nice looking result.

The finally select the remaining small ellipse and change the hatch angle to 180 before applying.