Illustrator CS4 ques. re: assignment of radius to sq. corners

[iSign]

I want to rout some letters to inset into a routed space in another material.

Right now I have a shape with sharp corners.

As the other CNC guys (& anyone who's thought about it) would know, if I use a 1/4" bit, I will have a 1/8" radius on all my inside corners. & on the negative space, that would be the opposite corners from on the letters...

So, I want to modify my file to contain a 1/8" radius on all corners.

I've heard people discuss different software that has tools to make this easy to do. I've never needed this tool, so I don't recall anything about which software has that capability, or how to do it.

I'll start checking the help menu. but wanted to fire this post up here first, since this is where I first heard about it being possible.

Thanks.

 

[cgsigns_jamie]

If you're using Illustrator you'll want to use the CadTools plugin from Hot Door.

It has a fillet tool that will round your corners.

Otherwise you could always use Flexi's "Round Corner" tool and select the "Inside Corner" option.

 

[luggnut]

in the effects menu under stylize there is a round corner effect... you can set it to round to a certain radius, then expand to make it permanent. i've never done the routing you are describing so i'm not sure if this is something that will help?

 

[astro8]

Fillet in EnRoute...I think you use EnRoute?

 

[Mason]

in the effects menu under stylize there is a round corner effect... you can set it to round to a certain radius, then expand to make it permanent. i've never done the routing you are describing so i'm not sure if this is something that will help?

exactly!

 

[luggnut]

Fillet in EnRoute...I think you use EnRoute?

its been a while since i used enroute, but that seems like the way to

 

[Rick]

In Illustrator CS4, you would do it as Jamie mentions, Cad Tools by Hot Door has a fillet tool. Problem with that tool... and almost all fillet tools is they get a little freaky around intersecting corners with a radius or intersecting corners with a tighter angle. When I used Enroute and Flexi, I was a little more comfortable with it, other shops I worked at we would hand grind the edges straight for a cleaner look.

On push thru jobs such as how I think you are describing, I would make sure the fillet did not over do the harder angles by running a 1/4" radius by it to double check it. On smaller lettering jobs I call out waterjet cut.

 

[iSign]

thanks guys!

I was reasonable successful with the CS4 method.

all my 90˚ corners worked properly (except 1 ?)

but the obtuse & acute angles in my M did not.
I fixed them with a little node editing, but I might experiment with Flexi & Enroute later.