Combine, Slice, Compound path for cut vinyl or Rhinestone template

Did you know how important it is to use the tools: slice or compound path when we make designs to cut into vinyl, htv or rhinestone template?

For example when applying the compound path tool (the name in inkscape is COMBINE and can be found in the PATH menu), make sure that the designs you open in cricut design space, do not show the following message: uploading image, the image is too large this may take a moment.

Rhinestone Compound path or combine

Is common to find in rhinestone designs the previous message, to solve it you must open the design in the inkscape software, select it completely and apply the option combine that you find in the path menu, once this is done you can save the file and open it again in cricut design space, you will see how to open quickly and will not show the warning message.

This is because a rhinestone designs generally have more than 500 circles and cricut interprets each of these circles as a design which makes it take a long time to load or simply does not load.

When you apply compound path, those 500 circles will be treated by cricut design space as a single element so it will load it quickly.

HTV / VINYL tips

When you’re cutting a design in vinyl and that design has several colors, then each color represents a layer of material and a new cut, when assembling the whole set, this can be difficult. Applying compound path (combine in inkscape) or slice (cricut design space) will facilitate the work. Here you have a tutorial explaining how to make the slice

Do you know why I say that it makes it easier to assemble the whole piece? Because the slice or combine, leaves a hole in the piece with the exact space where you should place the other color. This does not overlap the vinyls, forming a thick layer and annoying to the touch, increases the durability of the work because you are not sticking vinyl on vinyl, as each color has direct contact with the base (t-shirt, mug, bag, etc) making it better fixed.

Additional by applying slice or combine, you can save material and use the leftover clippings to make other projects, like the idea I show you in this other tutorial.