Onyx Thrive RIP — issue with masked cut lines

[DrDoctor]

We are encountering an issue when we need to distribute a contour-cut print across multiple lanes of printable vinyl.

In this case, we need to apply printed PTF Dusted film to windows in an office. It includes an image that needs to be cut into a specific shape with a Kisscut (the pink line), and the window's width is cut with a Thrucut. So far, everything is going well.

Next, using Artboards in Adobe Illustrator, we create the necessary lanes, one per window. For each artboard, we generate a PDF. Subsequently, we merge these PDF files into a single print file.

However, Onyx still detects the Kisscut cutting line that extends beyond the Cropbox of the PDF. This results in multiple cutting lines overlapping when creating a print file. The section marked with a blue line is the print for the leftmost window. The cutting line for the entire lady on the scooter suddenly becomes visible here:

Does anyone know if there is a solution to this issue, aside from manually dividing the cutting line? In other words, is there a way for Onyx to disregard the cutting line outside the Cropbox of a PDF?

Can anyone recommend an alternative workflow for such prints?

Many thanks in advance!

 

[White Haus]

That's very strange, can't say I've ever encountered anything like that. Then again, we generally rely on Onyx for our panels and tiling. (I see why you can't in this case, however)

What are your bleed settings in Illustrator / PDF export?

Can you export individual PDF's and just nest them in Onyx to see what happens?

 

[DrDoctor]

Thank you for thinking along!

We can send the PDF files individually to the RIP, but then we'll have a lot of material loss because two windows can fit side by side on the material.
If we rip everything individually, we'll need twice as much material.

We usually start application in the top left of left so our bleed is set to 10 mm to the right for overlap.
I'm not sure how to achieve this in Onyx and make it nest the four different pieces efficiently.

 

[victor bogdanov]

I do exactly as you have described and do not have this problem, except I don't merge the files. I just open them individually in onyx and nest/print them all at once

 

[DrDoctor]

Thanks for checking!
Individial files are OK indeed, nesting them together appears to be the problem — or how Onyx interprets this.
My best guess is that Onyx sees the Cropbox of the total print layout and does not respect the individual crop boxes contained within the print file.
Tiling with Submit each tile as separate job enabled seems to be working without problems too.
I tried different Quickset settings in Advanced > PS/PDF like PDF Page Size From: Cropbox, etc. but to no avail, apparently this only works for individual files.
Just the way Onyx works I guess.

Appreciate your help

 

[Grizzly]

Yep I've seen this as well. I would imagine it is because 1 - your crop lines are just slightly (This number can be as small as .002 and still pick it up) on the artboard and therefore onyx is picking that up. 2 - It's exactly on the artboard and onyx is also picking that up as a cut line.
I would send the whole file over as one piece and let onyx do the tiling. It should work how you are wanting it to.

 

[Dasdesignguy]

Are you able to flatten the artwork thus eliminating the layers on layers issue you are having? Can you send them as two separate files? One for the print and one for the cut? It has to be a layering issue. You could also try merging the the cut lines on their own separate layer so it is one continuous file with no line breaks.

 

[DrDoctor]

Yep I've seen this as well. I would imagine it is because 1 - your crop lines are just slightly (This number can be as small as .002 and still pick it up) on the artboard and therefore onyx is picking that up. 2 - It's exactly on the artboard and onyx is also picking that up as a cut line.
I would send the whole file over as one piece and let onyx do the tiling. It should work how you are wanting it to.

Thank you! Almost as I want it to — ideally, I would like the separate pieces to nest together to achieve efficient use of material.

 

[DrDoctor]

Are you able to flatten the artwork thus eliminating the layers on layers issue you are having? Can you send them as two separate files? One for the print and one for the cut? It has to be a layering issue. You could also try merging the the cut lines on their own separate layer so it is one continuous file with no line breaks.

Thanks for your help!

Flattening doesn't work, this only applies to transparency and raster effects.

Yes I would be able to do all you suggestet but that would invole more manual work. We process files like this on a regular basis and images used in these designs can beceome quite large which slows down processing in Illustrator.

The fastest workflow in Illustrator we found is keeping the image and cut line together, chopping it up with artboards and export those as PDF/X. Then we merge these PDF files in a nest manually or let our Switch workflow do the heavy lifting. The problem with this workflow is that Onyx keeps seeing the cut lines outside of the Media or Cropbox of each nested part — if it contains a contour cut that is, like described above.