Putting a logo on your part

Want your brand on an enclosure lid, your initials on a keychain, or a stencil of an icon? Solid Vibes turns a logo into real outlines and puts them on the part. It works from an SVG file (best: exact curves) or from a picture (PNG, JPG or WebP, even a phone photo), which it traces for you.

Four things a logo can become

Raised, engraved and stencil logos need a part to sit on. For a plate you can start from an empty Thing.

The quick way: Import a logo / SVG

1. Optional: click the face the logo should go on (for example the top of a lid).
2. Press ⌘K (Ctrl+K on Windows) and choose Import a logo / SVG….
3. Click Choose an SVG or a picture, or drop the file onto the form.
4. Check the preview. For a picture, the outline is drawn over it so you can see what was found.
5. Pick Plate, Raised, Engrave or Stencil, and the height or depth.
6. Set the Width in mm (or switch Size sets the to Height). The other side follows automatically, so the logo never gets stretched.
7. Click Apply. The logo shows as a ghost first, so you can adjust before you apply.

You can also drag a picture onto the editor. It asks what the picture should become: drop it on Trace as a logo? for this form, or on the other side to build a model from the image. An SVG file always opens the logo form.

The Extrude and Cut forms have the same option: set Profile to Logo / SVG.

Tuning a traced picture

Pictures are turned into outlines by a tracer that finds the edge between the logo and its background, then fits smooth curves.

• Threshold decides what counts as logo and what counts as background. It starts on Auto. Move it if thin parts disappear (go up) or the background creeps in (go down), and click Auto to go back.
• Swap light and dark for a light logo on a dark background when the automatic choice got it the wrong way round.
• Even out lighting (photos) removes shadows and uneven light. It's on for JPG photos and off for PNGs.
• Ignore specks drops dust, noise and tiny pinholes smaller than the percentage you set.
• Detail smooths the outline: All keeps every curve, lower values give rounder, simpler shapes that print more cleanly.

For the best result use a clean, flat logo on a plain background, photographed straight on and filling most of the picture.

What works in an SVG

Paths with curves and arcs, rectangles, circles, ellipses, lines, polygons, groups and transforms, and styles from Illustrator, Inkscape, Figma or icon sets all come in. Lines that only have a stroke (line icons) become solid outlines of the same thickness. Holes are kept, both even-odd and nonzero fills. White shapes painted on top of dark ones cut holes, and a full-size background rectangle is left out.

Some things are left out, with a note in the form:

• Text that is still text. Turn it into outlines first (Inkscape: Path → Object to Path, Illustrator: Type → Create Outlines, Figma: Flatten), or add the words with the Text tool.
• Embedded pictures inside the SVG. Import the picture itself to trace it instead.
• Scripts and links to other files. They are never run or fetched.

Files up to 3 MB are accepted. Very detailed drawings are simplified so the part stays fast to rebuild, and shapes that cross themselves are repaired.

Change it later

The logo is a normal step in the Recipe: "Sketch the logo “acme.svg”, 40 mm wide at 0 mm, 12 mm, detail 1 on the top face", followed by the extrusion. Click a value chip to change the size, position or detail, and the extrusion's chip to change the height or depth. Link any of them to a parameter to make a slider.

Changing the threshold of a traced picture needs the picture again: import it once more and turn the old steps off.

With the agent

Attach the picture in the prompt bar and say what you want:

Emboss this logo 1 mm on the top face, 30 mm wide, centred.

Make a 4 mm keychain from this logo, 45 mm wide, with a 5 mm hole for the ring.

Engrave the logo 0.6 mm into the front face, near the bottom.

The agent traces the picture, places it and shows you a proposal to accept or reject. To change it later, ask: "make the logo 20 % bigger", "smoother logo", "raise it 1.5 mm". Without a picture the agent can draw simple emblems itself (a heart, a star, a paw print).

Tips for printing

• Raised logos print best on the top face. On a side face, keep details at least 0.8 mm wide.
• Engraving deeper than 1 mm on a thin wall can break through: keep it under half the wall.
• Stencils need bridges: an "O" cut through loses its middle. Use a stencil font or a logo designed for stencils.
• Two colours on a multi-material printer: ask the agent for the logo as its own piece, sitting in an engraved pocket of the same shape.