Are you getting double cut lines when you trace in Silhouette Studio?
This is a common issue when tracing lines in Silhouette Studio. And the "issue" is actually how tracing works.
Read on for the best way to to recreate lines in Silhouette Studio.
Why Tracing Gives You Double Lines
When you look at a thin black line your eye sees a line.
But because Silhouette Studio's trace tool works on contrast and then places a cut line at the edge of that contrast - you get a cut line on either side of that black line.
That black "line" on your screen has a width. When you tell trace to outline the black portion of an image, it traces around the entire shape - which means it follows the either side of the thin line.
The result is two cut paths running parallel to each other instead of one single line going down the middle of where the black was.
For a solid filled shape like a heart tracing works perfectly because the area of contrast is only at the edge of the heart so the trace creates one clean outline around the whole shape. But for a thin line - especially one meant to be a fold line, score line, or score perforation - it creates a problem.
If you ever tried to trace a perforated line (like a fold line) you probably got a series of tiny ovals instead of single line dashes. This is the same issue - Silhouette Studio is tracing AROUND the shape.
A real example
Let's say you have a box template or coloring page that you bring into Silhouette Studio and you need to vectorize (trace) it to create cut lines.
Often times these templates are PDF files meant for cutting with scissors. The template shows where to cut around the perimeter and where to fold to assemble the box. The fold lines are drawn as thin black lines across the flat shape.
When you bring that PDF into Silhouette Studio and trace the template, you get clean cut lines around the outside of the box...
...and double cut lines running along where each fold line is supposed to be.
The workaround
The easiest way to avoid double cut lines when tracing lines is to actually not trace them at all. Instead, re-draw the lines yourself using the Draw a Line tool. This way you'll get one single cut line exactly where you want it.
Once your line is drawn, you can change its line style to perforated if it's meant to be a fold or score line. Open the Line Style panel and switch from solid to perforated. Now when your machine processes this line, it will create a series of small cuts to make the paper fold cleanly - rather than fully cutting through it like a real cut line would.
The full PDF cleanup workflow
The trace double-line issue is one of several gotchas that come up when bringing PDF patterns and templates into Silhouette Studio. PDFs often import with extra cut lines, bounding boxes, text that needs to be removed, and elements grouped in ways that make selective cleanup tricky.
New on Silhouette U this month, I'm walking you through the full process of importing a PDF box template, finding the extras that need to be removed, redrawing fold lines the right way, and converting them to perforated lines so they fold cleanly. The video uses a real free pattern from AuntAnnie.com so you can follow along with the same file if you want.
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