Question Alternative to Flexi for Windows

[Bobby H]

AI has always been a problem child when importing files into sl or flexi. Pen outlines instead of actual outlines mean squat to a plotter and most "designers" that use strictly the adobe products they were taught on in school have no clue about plotting vinyl.

There is zero problem with the Adobe Illustrator application. 100% of the problem rests with the people misusing the application. Also this notion of "they were taught that in school" is a bunch of garbage. That implies everyone in the self-taught camp doesn't make goofy mistakes when using graphics applications. How do you know that someone who created a garbage-quality customer provided art file had any kind of formal graphics training?

The situation is more complicated with sign shops trying to only use dedicated sign-making "CAS" software and not compliment it with Adobe Illustrator and/or CorelDRAW. I'd much rather open a customer provided AI, EPS or PDF file within Illustrator and trouble-shoot the file myself rather than making the client bounce back and forth with their "artist" to get them to do something as simple as removing line strokes from some artwork. (Edit: added comment here) To complicate the issue more, many large companies produce their branding work using Adobe applications, and Illustrator in particular. It's not a big deal if the assets have flat fills and no added effects. But some companies do embrace those effects. And a few of those Illustrator-based effects, such as freeform gradients, are not supported by rival drawing applications and are certainly not supported by sign industry-specific CAS software.

You won't find anything better than Flexi for vectors.

I beg to differ. We have 3 licenses of Flexi in my workplace, but they're all primarily used in sign production rather than design. Both CorelDRAW and Adobe Illustrator have far better vector drawing environments. And Illustrator is the better of those two due to its keyboard shortcuts relating to its pen tools and its zoom in/out and pan-view functions. Add plug-ins such as Astute Graphics' PathScribe, VectorScribe or InkScribe plug-ins and it gets even better still. Using Flexi is like going back in a time machine to the mid 1990's. Even back then I was shifting from using CASmate for all my design work to doing more and more in CorelDRAW and Illustrator.

Here's an even worse deficiency for "CAS" software: their outdated type engines. I don't know of any CAS apps that fully support the extended features of OpenType. Adobe Illustrator has fully supported the OpenType spec since the first version of Creative Suite in 2003. CorelDRAW added proper OpenType support with version X6 in 2012. Adobe Illustrator CC has supported OpenType Variable Fonts for its past couple or so versions. Corel added OTF Variable support with CDR 2020. Illustrator also supports the new OpenType-SVG font format.

 

[balstestrat]

Yes, I can create with Adobe products, but can PS run all of my equipment? Ive never tried to send jobs from PS to my printer with cut marks and then to my plotter to cut that it would recognize.

Onyx to go with that and then you have a full adobe support.

 

[netsol]

Also keep in mind, with a 32 bit application, it does not matter how much ram you put in a computer, a 32 bit application cannot address more than 4GB of memory. Windows can and can even swap other stuff up to higher memory addresses to free up more for the 32 bit app that is running.

One thing I have found that can help with really complex vectors in Flexi, if I am just moving some things around to group them for print, is to turn off show fills so it does not have to render/rerender all of the complex shadows, transparency, etc. Cannot see what it what since it is all just outlines but things move very quick then. I've determined the issue to more specifically be with transparency effects and how Flexi tries to render them while moving things around on screen. Can also the "design editor" window and simply turn those particular layers visibility off while moving things but you have to make sure to turn them back on.

Another bug I've found is with Illustrator files with multiple artboards. We often use artboards to chop things up for certain jobs. When opening in Flexi do NOT tell it to open all artboards at once. It will do it but random parts will be missing shadows or other effects with transparency. Open the first artboard, then import the same file again and import the next artboard, repeat, repeat, etc which can be tedious if the file has dozens of artboards.

sightline, it is of course, worse than you think with 32 bit programs
they can only use, the first 4 gigs of ram, already used by windows. all the required address blocks are there. there is no contiguous ram to be used, te memory msp looks like swiss cheese.

regarding keeping all client files on a NAS, i know this is universally done, but it is good and bad.

i would try havng a "current job" folder, on the pc you are working on & moving a copy of client file there, before opening. i know it is an extra time consuming step, and plays hell with linking and embedding, but i am just trying to point out the limitation of working with network storage. if you see the return of normal speed with those vector files, it is time to consider buildng a network infrastructure capable of supporting working this way. there are numerous technologies allowing 6gb and 10gb transfer rates

 

[Attila Nagy]

So isn't that alternative to Flexi..?

No, It is not. You won't be able to run a Logistic company with a Ferrari.

 

[Dale D]

One thing I have found that can help with really complex vectors in Flexi, if I am just moving some things around to group them for print, is to turn off show fills so it does not have to render/rerender all of the complex shadows, transparency, etc. Cannot see what it what since it is all just outlines but things move very quick then. I've determined the issue to more specifically be with transparency effects and how Flexi tries to render them while moving things around on screen. Can also the "design editor" window and simply turn those particular layers visibility off while moving things but you have to make sure to turn them back on.

It helped a little, but there is definitely an issue. I made a couple dups of my own logo next to a customers so I didnt waste expensive reflective vinyl, and it crashed flexi even with turning off show fills.

 

[Jester1167]

We used to work with large vector files and the software had problems when there were a huge number of nodes. This was 20 years back, but with Flexi still being 32 bit, there may be a limit to the number of nodes a file can have.

 

[Bobby H]

I don't think there is as much of an issue with the number of vector objects in a single file as there is with the number of anchor points (or nodes) on a single complicated vector object. In old versions of CorelDRAW (as well as Flexi) I avoided creating complex objects with any more than 5000 nodes. Back then such an object was prone to fail going to the plotter or even coming out of the office laser printer on a printed scale drawing sketch. I can recall all sorts of unpredictable things that would happen in CASmate when attempting to weld or combine together a bunch of script letters or other objects into a single more complex object. Some elements might disappear or get altered in strange ways. Or maybe the whole program would crash, sometimes with odd error pop-up boxes like "floating point: square root of negative integer."

Having a 64-bit OS and 64-bit software (not to mention more powerful hardware) provides more lee-way. IIRC newer versions of Adobe Illustrator have a limit of 32000 anchor points on vector objects.

 

[Jester1167]

The reason I brought the node scenario up, was that it appears that Ithe complex layouts are happing in Flexi and not the rip. We always sent one version to the rip and then let the rip layout the 100 copies.

Typically we always had problems when an object was auto traced and you made multiple copies or when you convert a paragraph of text to outlines.

 

[Dale D]

I didnt send each logo individually to Rip because I am using a Roland for print, and Summa for plotting, which requires contour cut marks and hate to waste an EXPENSIVE piece of 48 inch wide reflective vinyl for a 24 inch wide logo. So all I did was bring in about 10 smaller copies of my own logo which does have a good amount of nodes in each and it sent Flexi on its heals. Turning off show fills does help a little, but it didn't fix the issue. I looked into my own Logo in AI and it is showing ...

 

[SightLine]

If that is actually crashing Flexi even with show fills turned off than I suspect you might have a bad stick of ram or some other hardware bug (processor bug, motherboard bios firmware bug, etc). Very very rare will I have Flexi actually crash, even if working on massively complex files (we do a ton of wraps for buses which are often pure vector with a ton of effects like soft shadows, and transparency effects. If fills are on, generally the worst case is that Flexi will choke when you try to move something or change the view but it eventually does respond, it just might take it several minutes (which is still unacceptable in my opinion).

A stick of ram can have a single bad memory address that does not usually get hit and can often go unnoticed but when some bit of data does finally hit that particular tiny bit, boom - crash. That is one reason I have always been a proponent of higher end pro workstations that use ECC (error checking and correcting) memory, Xeon processors, etc. Various moreso server technologies but are often used in professional workstations where uptime and productivity are critical. I do tend to go way overboard though as my current workstation has 128GB ram, quad 1TB NVME SSD's, dual 8 core Xeon E5-2667 processors, and I have our workstations and file server all on 10gbe ethernet. We do run a lot of other applications though that can use the resources. The point being that even a tiny memory glitch is generally never even seen with this sort of hardware as it gets detected and remapped on the fly.

Also while it can save a lot of material to nest a bunch of duplicate things in Flexi, it will still always be better to use the rip and print dialog for printing many duplicates. When done in Flexi itself, you are forcing Flexi to render, and send every single duplicate (Production Manager also has to RIP every single one) whereas of you send multiples with the RIP and Print dialog Flexi is only rendering and sending one single copy and PM is only having to rip one single copy (it just prints the quantity chosen with the spacing, etc from the Rip and Print dialog).

 

[Dale D]

According to the 2 techs I had on teamviewer for over 4 hours, both said, yes they know there is issues with vectors with large amount of nodes from shadows, gradients, etc. (The 2nd support tech actually called me on his personal phone to continue since we were past their closing time)
I do not use Flexi for RiP and Print at all. I send it to VW for print with cut contour marks and use cut contour to send to my 2 plotters. (((Which there is a bug with Flexi drivers for drag knife, and Flexcut as well)). They sent a bug report to developers last night during this. Driver settings will not "stick" and keep going back to Flexi defaults.

Based on what both of the tech guys said, is they know about these issues and only can send to the developers. They expressed to me that the developers were not in any hurry to fix these items. I could only hope this may be addressed in the next update to be released in the next few months.

 

[MikePatterson]

I have been running Flexi forever. I think the biggest issue is stemming from an obscene amount of nodes (I've crashed flexi with a proverbial shit ton of nodes)
The other major issue is with how Flexi handles gradient fills that are made in AI. It has to do with clipping masks and fill steps. Unmask a gradient made in AI and you get 10,000 tiny rectangles, all a slightly darker shade.
Its just too much info for Flexi to crunch.
Flexi doesn't use clipping masks for its rendering of gradient fills.

Just my take. I'm probably wrong about the situation.

 

[Dale D]

Actually, I tend to agree with you. My logo for example had gradient fills made with Ai.

 

[WildWestDesigns]

A stick of ram can have a single bad memory address that does not usually get hit and can often go unnoticed but when some bit of data does finally hit that particular tiny bit, boom - crash. That is one reason I have always been a proponent of higher end pro workstations that use ECC (error checking and correcting) memory, Xeon processors, etc. Various moreso server technologies but are often used in professional workstations where uptime and productivity are critical. I do tend to go way overboard though as my current workstation has 128GB ram, quad 1TB NVME SSD's, dual 8 core Xeon E5-2667 processors, and I have our workstations and file server all on 10gbe ethernet. We do run a lot of other applications though that can use the resources. The point being that even a tiny memory glitch is generally never even seen with this sort of hardware as it gets detected and remapped on the fly.

Don't forget too, that it used to be this checking of errors was a performance hit, but now the checking is offloaded onto the CPU, only when there is an error and correcting is done is there actually a RAM performance hit (although still more often then not not noticed).

I've been a huge advocate of Xeon and ECC ram as well, although I do seem to recall some on here saying that it isn't necessary to go Xeon/ECC route (some think that they should be relegated to server only). The reason why they are good for the server is also a reason why they are good for the desktop as well.

But that's just my take on it.

 

[Jester1167]

Also, when you have repeatable errors in a program, it's good to close it down, delete all the temp files, and restart the program. Your program will continue to see a corrupt temp file unless you delete it.

Close your program. In the Search programs and files type %temp% and delete all the temp files it will let you. If the program is open it will be in use and won't let you delete it. You should be doing this weekly after you start your computer anyway. If not you will see hundreds of megs of files left behind. Any files in use, check the do for all box and skip them. had 380megs, been awhile.

I checked mine and

 

[Dale D]

Also, when you have repeatable errors in a program, it's good to close it down, delete all the temp files, and restart the program. Your program will continue to see a corrupt temp file unless you delete it.

Close your program. In the Search programs and files type %temp% and delete all the temp files it will let you. If the program is open it will be in use and won't let you delete it. You should be doing this weekly after you start your computer anyway. If not you will see hundreds of megs of files left behind. Any files in use, check the do for all box and skip them. had 380megs, been awhile.
View attachment 150229 View attachment 150230 View attachment 150231 I checked mine and

I appreciate the suggestion. I have done as stated above. Its not my issue. From what Flexi support is saying is it has nothing to do with my PC. It is a 1 yr old gaming PC with maxed out RAM , but it is still limited to the fact that the software is still 32 bit and can only access a limited amount of memory. As soon as I throw an image with a bunch of nodes at it, it crashes or at ;least takes 10-15 minutes to even add cut lines. Guys on the support line have told me that they do not know if or when there ever will be a 64 bit version which stinks.

So, instead of trying to fix Flexi, this goes back to my origional question, is there any suggestions for alternative software to Flexisign??

 

[FireSprint.com]

Sorry if this has already been brought up, I have not read the whole thread, but this concerned me:

...DDR4 SDRAM. And all of my customer files are stored on a separate FreeNas machine...

That could very well be your bottleneck right there. Working on large files over a network, even a fast one, can be problematic. If you are not already, try moving the files to your desktop or something local before opening them.

Also, (Again sorry if this has been addressed) are you monitoring your system resources as you do this? It should give you a clear idea of what Flexi is the most taxing on. Whether that be your HDD, memory, etc...

FireSprint is a trade only yard sign and sticker printer. Join our nationwide network of resellers today!

 

[Dale D]

All the Flexi processing is done inside of my windows PC. Its not a saving that I have issue with its merely bringing in a vector with a lot of nodes brings Flexi to its knees.(Files that That Ai doesnt even blink at) Just for giggles, I shut off my hardwired network server, and saved locally. SAME ISSUE.

I have watched my resources WITH FLEXI SUPPORT logged into my machine on 2 separate occasions. Even though I show having much extra memory available, (32 gigs of RAM) "The ram maxes out at about 2g in windows due to 32 bit software limitations" (Direct quote from them)

An single 32-bit process under a 64-bit OS is limited to 2Gb. ...but can possibly with a patch use up to 4gb of ram. (Which Im considering)

As much as I appreciate the fix for Flexi it does not answer the question for an alternative.

 

[Dale D]

**UPDATE** So, after another chat with tech support, they also had issues with the files I sent them. The head tech said that if I was interested, I could try the new Flexi 21 Beta. It is a 64 bit update as well as some other changes. Ive run it for 4 days now and LOVE it. Yes, I had a file that slowed it down (2-3 min to save a high node job) but it never crashed or sit with swirling circle. Tech said it should be released in the next 4-8 weeks.
Its been frustrating....but I want to give props to Flexi Support for addressing the issue.

 

[rjssigns]

I run Flexi 12 and haven't had any issues. Computer is older with an AMD CPU and 8 gigs of RAM. Actually surprised how well production manager dealt with huge TIFF files for a semi wrap. Some were near two gigs.

I've been around this business a long time and just because it's new doesn't mean it's better or faster or anything. Lots of these issues are caused by people replacing what always worked with something that sounds good. Absolutely idiotic that these problems still exist in 2021. It's not as if the computer or software was invented six months ago.

Something I deal with on a regular basis is Adobe CC. Students design a layout on their laptop which has auto updates for CC. They get to campus and can't open their files because IT doesn't update as often.(which is smart) Lately InDesign on campus won't open IDML files built on the latest version. If it does it corrupts them in the process. Tell me how that's a good thing.