Wow nice replies! Ok Maybe I asked the wrong question? Island sign dude I'm not mad at you at all!
Guys what I mean is I print a decal in color and want to contor cut it...Is this croping? You see I don't have a color printer/cutter just a cutter so would I be able to use the roland cx 500 to do this? Thats why I said asked what I did.
Knowing the correct nomenclature is at least half of all understanding. To 'crop' is generally accepts as to remove a geometrically regular subset from an image, a rectangle, an oval, whatever.
To contour cut is to trace an arbitrary line on an image. Usually the outline of the image itself but not necessarily so.
In order to do either on a plotter the software that cuts the image either has to be the same software that created the image or in touch with it in some way. even through you will work. Moreover the plotter has to be able to communicate to the software that's driving it it's interpretation of at least two and preferably 4 image registration devices that must be part of the print.
Here's why...
The first problem being how do you load the image in your plotter such that the plotter's origin is that same as the printer's origin? OK, print a mark on the image at X=0, Y=0. If you can set the cutter blade at exactly this point and then set the plotter's origin to that point, you have conquered that part.
But that's not even close to sufficient. How do you load the media in the plotter with exactly the same skew as the printer? If you don't the cut will be way off at the X and Y extremities of the image.
Assuming that you have superhuman powers and are able to load the media into the plotter with exactly the same skew as the printer. Then how do you compensate for any disparity between the software's concept of an inch and the printer's interpretation of an inch? They are different, sometimes wildly so.
So you print an image and, for this example, print 4 registration marks. One in each corner of the rectangle that contains the image. The software knows where it set these marks and the distances between them. This is called the 'Logical Image'. What gets printed is seldom, if ever, an accurate rendering of these marks. Distances both in the X and Y directions are interpreted by the mechanics of the printer. This is called the 'Physical Image'.
Load the physical image into a plotter capable of sending its interpretation of the location of the 4 marks back to the software or of dealing with any necessary mapping itself. There are both kinds. Once the system knows where the marks are in the plotter and where they should be in the software it's a simple bit of ratio arithmetic to calculate where any logical point on the print physically is on the plotter. This then takes care of origin, skew, size, and linear distortion.
That's how it's done in the real world.
