What determines where VersWorks starts cutting?

[No Lemon]

I think I have seen it in VersaWorks settings but not sure. Any help?

 

[Gene@mpls]

You have not seen it. I don't believe in total randomness... but have used VW for years and it is as close as I have seen.

 

[crny1]

I have never figured out a way to tell it to start anywhere inparticular either...........

 

[Gino]

With your up, over and down arrows, position the knife where you want to initiate, press the 'base point' button and then go to town.

 

[No Lemon]

With your up, over and down arrows, position the knife where you want to initiate, press the 'base point' button and then go to town.

I know the base point start I am wondering why sometime it spits out a bunch of vinyl then starts cutting and sometimes it starts at the leading edge.

 

[woolly]

It all happens at the design stage.
It cuts in the order you drew it or introduced a object.
You can change the order of a cut loop by moving it to the back cut first or front cut last on the drawing design.
So if you are digitizing a logo you should draw in the direction you want to cut and the bits you want cut first draw first. Also where you start and finish your loops and direction can make a big difference to weeding so think ahead as you design

 

[SignMeUpGraphics]

It cuts by layer order.
Lowest layer gets cut first, and so on.
I have an Illustrator script that arranges layers into optimized order so it prints from top to bottom, minimizing feed movements.

 

[crny1]

It cuts by layer order.
Lowest layer gets cut first, and so on.
I have an Illustrator script that arranges layers into optimized order so it prints from top to bottom, minimizing feed movements.

What script is that?

 

[CSOCSO]

I would like to know also what script is that!

 

[SignMeUpGraphics]

Here you go:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/va8fvuv1rsj5crq/CutVinylSort.zip?dl=1

Unzip and move into the Scripts folder and restart Illustrator (eg. C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Illustrator CS6 (64 Bit)\Presets\en_US\Scripts).

To use:
- Select all cut objects you wish to sort
- File menu -> Scripts -> CutVinylSort

The script will then order all selected objects into an optimized cut order based on top left starting position.

 

[IND Digital Dept.]

Unzip and move into the Scripts folder and restart Illustrator (eg. C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Illustrator CS6 (64 Bit)\Presets\en_US\Scripts).

To use:
- Select all cut objects you wish to sort
- File menu -> Scripts -> CutVinylSort

The script will then order all selected objects into an optimized cut order based on top left starting position.

Will this work in Illustrator CC?

 

[SignMeUpGraphics]

The code is very generic, so I am pretty sure it should work on CC as well.
Just find your Scripts folder (probably C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Illustrator CC 2017\Presets\en_US\Scripts) and drop it in and start up Illustrator.

 

[CSOCSO]

The code is very generic, so I am pretty sure it should work on CC as well.
Just find your Scripts folder (probably C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Illustrator CC 2017\Presets\en_US\Scripts) and drop it in and start up Illustrator.

How is this supposed to work?
I tried to do a quick test and what I did might not work out but what id did is i just wrote 123456789
then turned them into curves or outlines. Then ungrouped them so each letter has its own layers. Now i did not change the numbers on my screen but i did scramble the layer order to see if the script will organize the layers. I ran the script and it looks like it just randomly scrambled the layers. I click on each number but the layer order is still totally random. they are not one after another. Am I missing something? Yes the numbers were selected when i ran the script, as i said the layers were scrambled again because of the script

EDIT:
Ok i realized why it didn't work. The numbers I typed up was just straight across in 1 line.
I moved around some numbers. some are higher than others. Of course, the layer order is scrambled. Then i ran the script and I realized that basically this script is just rearranging the layers from top to bottom. Not side to side. So basically when i set up all my text and logos i need to take the whole document and rotate 90degrees then run the script. The only problem is that not two texts nor logo are the same size. Let's say 3 lines of text is aligned to the right. but the top text is the longest. middle text is the shortest and bottom is medium length. Now the script will rearrange it in a way that it will cut the longest on first then the medium length one and then shortest but in reality the cutter will jump back and forth and we are talking about only 3 lines of text. If you have a bunch of logos and texts the cutter will jump left to right a lot of unnecessary head movement. BUT! the material won't roll back and forth as much i guess. Just need to rotate the whole document 90 degree and then run the script. I hope you guys kinda understand what i was trying to say here. lol

 

[SignMeUpGraphics]

Hmm, I never realised it wasn't doing left to right (I didn't write the script, but found it years ago and tweaked to my liking).
I'll take a look at it during the week and see if I can update it to also do ordering across the page from L to R also.

 

[CSOCSO]

Hmm, I never realised it wasn't doing left to right (I didn't write the script, but found it years ago and tweaked to my liking).
I'll take a look at it during the week and see if I can update it to also do ordering across the page from L to R also.

how can you tweak it? i didn't understand much of the code.

 

[SlikGRFX]

Here's what I do.

1. Make a copy of the document.
2. Use the wand to grab the cutpaths only.
3. Paste them to a new top layer and lock the other layers containing artwork.
4. Grab the first say 20 cm of cutpaths and send to back.
5. Then grab the next 20cm of cutpaths and the first 20cm (the ones from 4.) and send those to back.
6. Repeat until you reach the end of the job.

This way Versaworks will cut in 20cm 'rows' to minimise blade and vinyl movement. It will cut each letter completely and won't separate the paths.

Obviously if your job is 2m long, you could cut in 40cm rows instead, or whetever you are happy with.