This means that you can feed it a raster-type image, and it can generate a vector trace from it. Inkscape has some pretty sophisticated vectorization algorithms built-in.

It's also recommended that mm is used as the default unit.

This makes it easier to visualize your design ( File > Document Properties)

Set the document page size to the size of your media.

This will exclude the stroke width in the calculation of shape dimensions (which are also ignored in DXF, LaserCut, etc).

Change the bounding box option from 'Visual' to 'Geometric'.

You may find better control if you convert to grayscale first, tweak brightness/contrast/levels, and then dither.

Set 'Color dithering' to your desired effect (probably something besides 'None').

Select 'Use black and white (1-bit) palette'.

In GIMP, select Image > Mode > Indexed.And convert your image to a black-and-white dither.You'll need to know your desired physical size and do the math to figure out how many pixels that is Dithering an image can yield good results.There is some reaction time involved so the slower your scan, the better resolution you'll have across power levels. As it scans your raster, it will attempt to modulate the power. Lightburn can scale the power of the laser according to the brightness or darkness of each pixel.Remember there are not colors in laser cutting, the laser only cuts in one color (burnt). Lightburn will accept a full-color image, but will process it as gray scale.LightBurn can be used to etch raster images (jpg, png, bmp, etc) with some caveats: 123d Make can generate slices from 3D models that can be assembled into 3D objects (N cost, but not open source and no Linux support).GIMP can be used to create etch designs only. It's like the 100% free and open source cousin of Adobe Photoshop. GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) is photo-editing software for creating or modifying raster images (jpg, png, bmp, etc).Inkscape can be used to create designs that can include both etches and cuts in a single file.

It's like the 100% free and open source cousin of Adobe Illustrator.

Inkscape is illustration software for creating or modifying vector images.

The Lightburn software is great for interfacing to the laser cutter and has basic drawing tools, but you are generally better of doing your designs in dedicated design software.

Inkscape vs gimp for dxf