[hammondsenior]

Hi everyone,

My name is Craig and I've just joined the site. I have read posts on here quite a few times over the past few months since i bought my first vinyl cutter, and its been a big help. I've hit a wall now though and thought i should register and see if anyone could help! I'm having a nightmare involving artcut, inkscape, vector magic and a range of other applications and software! I know this isn't the place for such questions, but where would be the best place to ask for help on this?

many thanks in advance,

Craig

 

[BrianHahn]

Hi Craig, which vinyl cutter do you have?
For InkScape, if you go to the help menu and go to Tutorials, go through the 8 documents in detail.

 

[hammondsenior]

hi, thanks for the reply. i have a goldcut cutter that came with artcut. i used the free trials on illustrator and coreldraw to vector images for the cutter, but now they have expired im looking for a solution. ive run a couple of images through vector magic and saved them as eps files, but artcut wont open them. when i save a file in inkscape and try to open it using artcut, it just comes up as zigzagged lines. any ideas?

craig

 

[BrianHahn]

InkScape has the ability to vectorize bitmap images. Open your JPEG in InkScape, go to Path at the top, then Trace Bitmap... Play with this tool until you get a vector image you are happy with. Make sure to click on the image first before running the vectorize trace. Also make sure you don't hit the vectorize button twice or you will lay duplicate vectors on top of each other. When done, delete the bitmap files and do an EPS export. Open the EPS file in your cutting software and you should be able to cut it.

 

[hammondsenior]

ive tried that but the only option i can find is "export bitmap", am i missing something?

 

[BrianHahn]

Go to File, Save As, Save As Type, Encapsulated Post Script (EPS)

 

[hammondsenior]

ive done that, but when i open the eps in artcut its just zig zagged lines that bear no resemblance to the image. ive tried using signcut and it sends something to the cutter, but theres some kind of error and it doesnt actually tell the blade to drop onto the vinyl. i am cursed!

 

[BrianHahn]

PM me and I will give you my contact info so you can send me the file. I will take a look at it.