Cut vector artwork on a CNC router with real cutter compensation and a scale you set deliberately rather than one a converter guessed. GRBL .nc out, free, in a browser tab.
Open app.caddillo.com and pick your .svg. Parsing runs in the browser, so the artwork stays on your machine. Paths, rectangles, circles, polygons, nested groups and transforms all come across.
SVG carries no real units, so you tell CADdillo what one unit means. Presets cover 1:1, 96 DPI, 72 DPI and millimetres, or import and calibrate: click across a distance you know, type the true dimension, and everything rescales. Get this right and the part fits; get it wrong and you cut expensive confetti.
Click the contour you want to cut. It must close on itself so the cutter has a defined inside and outside. If a path has a gap — common in exported artwork — the editor’s join and trim tools close it in a couple of clicks.
Set tool diameter, cut depth, stepdown, cutter side, feed rate and safe Z. Check the offset toolpath drawn on the canvas and the time estimate, then download the .nc for your GRBL sender.
Everything else in this workflow is convenience. These two are the difference between a part that fits and a piece of scrap, and they are exactly where the quick browser converters cut corners.
SVG has no physical units. A converter that hardcodes 96 DPI is guessing on your behalf, and the guess is wrong often enough to matter. CADdillo asks, offers the standard conventions, and lets you calibrate against a dimension you can measure.
The toolpath is displaced by half the tool diameter to the side you pick, so the finished edge lands on the line you drew. Cut a 100 mm shape outside with a 3.175 mm endmill and the path spans 103.175 mm — the part measures 100 mm.
Logos and cut letters live as vector artwork and end up on a router. This is the whole path from Illustrator file to cut acrylic.
Ornament, patterns and traced outlines are natural SVG work. Cutting them needs real offsets, or the inlay will not seat.
Icon sets, maps and silhouettes come as SVG. Turning one into a physical part is exactly this workflow.
Figma, Illustrator and Inkscape stop at the drawing. This picks it up from there without a CAM package.
Starting from CAD geometry that already has real units.
Want the CAD file rather than the toolpath?
Cutting a part someone sent you as a DWG.
If the artwork is a photo rather than vector, size and convert it first at imageinseconds.com — free, in the browser, no upload.
Open app.caddillo.com, choose File ▸ Import SVG, set the scale, select the closed shape you want to cut, then choose File ▸ Export G-code (CAM). Fill in the tool and depth values, check the toolpath preview, and download the .nc. Free, in a browser tab, with no CAM software to install.
Because unlike a screen render, a cut is physical and unforgiving. An SVG says a shape is 240 units wide; the machine needs to know whether that is 240 millimetres or 2.5 inches. Most quick svg-to-gcode converters silently assume 96 DPI, and when that assumption is wrong you find out after the endmill has been through your stock. CADdillo asks once, offers the standard conventions, and lets you calibrate against a dimension you can verify — which takes about twenty seconds and eliminates the entire class of problem.
Two things, both of which show up on the finished part. First, real cutter compensation: the toolpath is offset by half your tool diameter in the direction you choose, so a 100 mm shape cut on the outside actually measures 100 mm rather than 100 mm plus a tool width. Most lightweight converters emit the path on the line and leave you to work out the error. Second, an explicit scale decision instead of a hardcoded DPI guess. There is also multi-pass depth stepping and a backplot preview, but the compensation is the part that determines whether the part fits.
Bezier curves are tessellated to a tight chord tolerance and cut as a dense path. Where the SVG contains a genuine circle or arc and the transform is uniform, it is preserved as a true circle or arc, which cuts cleaner and produces a much smaller file than a chorded approximation. Text is imported as text and needs converting to outlines in your design tool first if you intend to cut the letterforms themselves.
Almost always a gap. Exported artwork frequently has paths that look closed on screen but have endpoints a fraction of a unit apart, and a toolpath cannot be offset around a shape with no defined interior. Zoom in on the corners, use join to close the path, and it will select. This is the single most common snag in the whole workflow and it takes seconds to fix once you know to look for it.
Anything speaking GRBL — Shapeoko, X-Carve, Onefinity, MPCNC, 3018-class mills — loaded through Universal Gcode Sender, cncjs, Candle or Carbide Motion. The file is plain G-code with G21/G20 units, G90 absolute positioning, G0 rapids at safe Z and G1 feed moves, so it is readable before you run it. For a laser rather than a router, there is a laser toolpath mode; check the header and your power/speed settings before firing.
