Creating Vector Text in Grasshopper (for laser or CNC output)

Tutorial by: Adam Marcus (acmarcus@umn.edu)

July 25, 2012

Grasshopper Build 0.8.066

When using Grasshopper/Rhino to generate output for a laser cutter or CNC router, it is often useful to generate text labels for the components that will be fabricated. Unfortunately, the text feature in Rhino typically outputs solid text characters, which can cause issues when sent to the CNC machinery. This tutorial and GH definition allows you to output text directly as vector lines, which make it much easier to output these lines to be cut or scored by the machine.

Adapted from: Parametricmodel.com and David Rutten's contribution on the GH forum.

Download the GH definition from the link at the bottom of the page. To use the single line fonts, you will also need to install the font files that are included. You will see two options for using this tool:

1. Generating a single text string.

To modify this definition, you can customize each of the inputs located in the "Just for the demo" group on the left side of the screen.

2. Generating multiple text tags to be located at multiple points.

This definition is intended for projects that need multiple text tags applied to multiple point locations (for example, a fabrication project that has 100 laser-cut components, each of which needs its own unique label etched onto it). In order for this to work, you will need two separate lists, each with the same number of items and data structure -- one list of point locations for the text, and one list of strings (the labels for each tag).

Input the point list into the "Location Points" input, and input the string list into the "Text" input. The definition should generate the tags at the specified points in vector font form.