Free science SVG files

Glass you can cut

Real laboratory glass is a thin line with nothing inside it, which makes a poor cut file: the outline is fragile and anything drawn inside falls out. Here the glass is a wall between 4 and 5 mm thick when a vessel is 100 mm tall, the liquid is a solid fill joined to that wall, and the bubbles are round holes in the liquid. A beaker or flask cut from one colour of vinyl therefore reads as glass, liquid and bubbles at once.

The scale marks on the beaker are plain ticks with no numbers. Above the liquid they are short bars that stand out from the wall, and below the surface they are cut into the liquid, each between 2 and 3 mm wide. If you want measurements, add them in your cutting software.

Sizes for the finer designs

The atom has orbits about 3 mm wide at 100 mm and is safe in vinyl from about 50 mm across. The DNA helix has rungs about 2.5 mm wide with gaps of the same size, so cut it at 80 mm or more. The field lines of the magnet and the legs of the telescope are the thinnest parts in the set, between 2 and 4 mm, so keep those two at 90 mm or more in card and wood. The lab silhouette stands on a straight bench line and suits a classroom shelf or a shadow box.

How to open the files

• Cricut Design Space: choose Upload, pick the SVG, and add it to the canvas. Set the width you want; the shape is already welded.
• Silhouette Studio: Designer Edition and above open the SVG. The free Basic Edition does not, so open the DXF instead.
• LightBurn, xTool Creative Space and Glowforge: import the SVG, then set the layer to cut, score or engrave.
• Inkscape, Illustrator and Affinity: open the SVG. It is a plain filled path, so you can recolour it, add a stroke or combine it with your own work.
• Printing or sublimation: use the PNG, which has a transparent background.

Each design page lists the file’s narrowest part at seven sizes, so you can tell whether it will survive at the size you plan to cut.

Questions