Wildgoose

Ha ha! I have been there too. About the time you pull the heat press vinyl back out of the machine you realize your mistake. I am happy with Scalp having an easily accessable button to flip the image right on the standard workspace. It's visable enuogh that it often reminds me and I have not had a screw up yet.

Welcome Wil, You will find some very nice and helpful folks on this forum. Thank you for your service to the country. They don't pay you guys enough but I'm sure you knew that going in. I'd like to see those pics when you get around to it. I have cut a few etching stencils in my day as well but never thought of using colored vinyl and I'm intrigued. Paul

I have played around with it a bit and come to the conclusion that I actually like the WYSIWYG method. I size my cutting mat appropriately to match my vinyl or the amount of vinyl I want to use and place my svg files on so that they are starting in the lower right corner. If I want to cut text and it fits horizontally I rotate it until its looking proper and make sure the edges are within the cutting mat cut zone and cut. I align my cutter on the spot that I want to call zero which corresponds with the lower right corner of the cutting mat on the screen and haven't had any problems. I usually allow for some extra off the top of the mat from what the actual vinyl so the rollers don't run off the vinyl (2"-3") Have had pretty good luck now that I'm used to it. If you need to re-cut a certain element on a particular design you can shrink down the cutting mat to just cover the letter or spot you need and thats all the machine will cut. Works just fine. I have a 48" machine and am always moving my vinyl around to utilize various sets of grit rollers depending on the vinyl width so I just make sure I get it loaded and reset the zero on the cutter and let the WYSIWYG work for me. I used to use SignCut Pro and have made the switch since early January and after forcing myself to get used to the "feel" and quirks of SCALP I am doing good. Don't get me wrong, I'll be happy when they get a few more bugs worked out but the worst of it is past. SignCut has plenty of quirks too that I had to get used to when I started with it.

I have had the window pop up to tell me there is another update out there but it never made me go get it. In fact I ran for quite a while and skipped a couple of the updates before I got around to loading the latest. As said previously, the program is in the process of a major overhaul and probably could be considered a beta version for all intents but I have been amazed at what they have done with it since it came on line. I think you're smart to have another option available like signblazer. I fall into the part time description and also have Sign Cut Pro to fall back on but I have been running for a month without having to renew my license yet and I'm hoping to never have to. I have made a few changes to how I design files and have cured several of my personal issues that way. There are some other things that they need to get working but I have chatted with the tech support guys at Craft Edge and they are working toward those things (tiling and multiple copies). They really don't have that much farther to go but I imagine its a lot of programming time to get those things figured out.

I'm not super up on designing in SCALP either I do my designs in another program but here is a basic walkthrough: Type the text you want in scalp. This will be considered live text at this point. Under the text tab click "convert text to outlines" then go to the object tab and click "ungroup". At this point the text is now an object and you can go into the shapes library and find a rectangle and place it on top of the letter you need to modify. You may have to use the node edit tool to stretch the rectangle out or shring it to fit to cover the area you need without going past the edges. Make sure both the new rectagle and the original letter are both selected and then go to the path tab and click "unite" and it should weld the two together. You will have to play around to get used to doing this and you should watch the tutorials but its very do-able. One thing to note. Once you convert text to outlines you can no longer use the regular text edit tools so you should make sure its spelled correctly and I usually try to be done with it before converting to an object.

They are still working on being able to tile a project that is larger than your vinyl. It IS in the works and will be available later this spring or summer as I understand it. About the only way to do this now is to make the cutting mat the size of your vinyl and drag the image around leaving parts of it off the canvas so-to-speak. Scalp will only cut what is within the cutting mat boundary. I have done one like this as an experiment and it worked although there is not much precision to it and determining how much overlap you want is a guess at best. I drew a line on the graphic where the edge was so I could see it when I moved it for the next pass. I am looking forward to that update when it comes out.

Depends on how you got there. If it is a clipping path using the frame of your expanded text to clip the pattern and give it the zebra look then you won't be able to cut that in signcut. I don't think .ai will let you expand that either. You will need to do the proceedure over using the unfilled text frame on top of your pattern and clip it with the "intersect" tool option from the pathfinder pallet. You will have to have expanded the zebra pattern prior to this if it wasn't already, both have to be lines and curves. The pattern should be filled, the top object an empty object. If your doing a whole string of text it will probably need to be a compound shape (rather than a group of letters) or it will just do one. It's a little tricky.

If you are designing in ai then I will almost guarantee that you have unfilled paths. Here is the fix: in Illustrator before you save for the final time, open the layers panel and toggle open any compound paths you have made (particularly with the merge function). Look down the items within the path packet/group and you wil see some with no color. click on the specific item that has no color (use the layers panel to select so that you don't select the whole object) then use the select all items with same fill color from up on the top of the workspace and Illustrator should select any other invisibe paths then just push delete and your drawing should be cleaned up and ready to go. I use Illustrator CS5 and buttons and locations within other versions might be slightly different but I believe that all the above mentioned function have been available for quite a while if you happen to be running an older version of AI. In my experience these invisible paths are a piece of cake to find in AI but I have a lot more trouble trying to find them in SCALP or Inkscape. The layers panel on AI is really the ticket. I use the merge function sparingly due to this issue. Often "Unite" or "minus front" will accomplish what your trying to do and won't cause this path problem. Good luck

I got mine for $50 when they had the special offer. I am happy with it especially at that price. I also use Sign Cut Pro but am in the process of phazing that out if I can get used to SCALP. So far there are still a few issues but the design team is litterally working around the clock to bring SCLAP up to snuff and it is getting better with each update. I can tell you that once you get away from the sihlouette and get used to the MH you will wonder what the #%^&@ you just spent the last year trying to produce anything with that thing. For vinyl the MH should smoke the little sihlouette. The only thing I see that the craft cutters do better/different is being able to cut cardstock and paper with the cutting mat but I just went out and bought a Sihlouette cutting mat from walmart and I have cut several craft projects for my wife on it already on my big cutter. I have the creation P-Cut which is a little different from the MH but I think they are similar. Both budget models. The only thing that SCALP really is in dire need of as far as I am concerned is getting the ability to tile a project that is bigger than your vinyl. They told me they will probably have that going by mid year. There are a few other things that would be nice to fine tune and I think they will dial in on. The rest is pretty functional really. I design with another program and just import for cutting purposes but I have played around with the design part enough to say it seems to work ok. The good thing is you can import files from other sources like inkscape and .ai so your not limited to what the design portion of the program can do anyway.

I use Illustrator with an add-on called Concatenate that I bought just for that purpose. I don't know if they make a plug in for Inkscape. The problem is it will connect all the segments but the images still have a bazillion nodes so you have to use another filter and simplify the paths. Its a PIA. .dxf files are structured around splines rather than curves. Not too cutter friendly. You might have about as good of luck saving them as a jpg and just tracing them out.

It sure sounds like you have two layers stacked. If they are exactly on top of each other you would need to move one in order to even tell you had the second below. Did you create the file in SCALP? I would poke around and see if you happened to copy and paste another on top of perhaps one of the design tools inadvertantly made a copy while performing another function like weld/merge. I would try selecting it and dragging and maybe ungrouping it to see if there is something hidden below. I haven't had any problem like you describe with SCALP. Have had it with SignCut. The ones I had problems with were compound shapes that I had used the merge tab (designs in Illustrator) on and it created a separate object in each hole (unfilled object). I am more careful when drawing now and remove them. I would recomend using some butcher paper and a pen attachment if you have it while playing with a problem file until you can get it found.

If you have the Pro version the cutting mat size is up to 200" x 200" but SCAL3 and SCALP are two different programs I believe.

Cutter>mat size>custom and you can set your own size for the vinyl.

I have been messing around for a while and can't find if there is a way to change the orientation on the rulers on the cutting mat. My cutter cuts from the lower right hand corner but the rulers are set from the upper left. It would be nice to have the rulers start where the cutter starts. There is very likely somewhere to do this but I have yet to find it.

I have a new wish list idea. I would like to be able to click and drag or a simpler way to adjust the cutting mat size rather than having to go through the cutter>mat size>custom process. This isn't a critical thing but it would save time when working with scrap pieces of vinyl.

I'm not going to start a fight but I don't have near the issues with it that Lueman does. SCALP is definitely not Flexi but if you are that serious about things then you can design in AI or correl and import it anyway (or Inkscape for that matter). It definitely has a ways to go in some regards but I have been surprised at the fervor with which the design team has tackled things to date. Also have received prompt concise answers to my questions that I sent to the design guys at Craft Edge. I have been using SignCut Pro with a paid subscription of $100/year and am excited to put that money in my pocket this year. I already draw in AI so the design issues aren't an issue but I did take the time to play around with SCALP and found I liked it as much as Inkscape. Yes kearning is an issue occasionally and maybe they will upgrade that too but it DOES have tracking which can usually deal with it anyway. Bottom line, for entry level cutters and newbies it's enough and will probably teach newbies some great lessons by having to deal with an Edsel rather than having a Ferrari and they will appreciate things more if/when they upgrade. I have a P-Cut 1200 series cutter which has been at times a real PITA but I think I'm better for having to have figured out how to make a budget cutter get me by. I am planning on an upgrade this season to a Graphtec and I am looking forward to using Cutting Master straight from Illustrator but I will still have the old machine in the corner in case something goes down and SCALP ready to save the day.

I recently received response from the design team that they are still working on tiling and hope to have it out in the first half of 2013. So within 6 months hopefully we will see something. That is an important feature that is missing and I'm real glad they are planning on getting it going. They were understandably hesitant to commit to any certain date but I'm cool with waiting and it is definitely getting better with every update.

I have a P-Cut machine which is similar. On your MH machine you will manually align the cutter blade with the edge of the vinyl and find the control to zero out the cordinates. I usually align mine inside the pinch rollers to avoid any damage but that's not absolute. I have never used a circuit but I think I understand the basics. On the MH you will need to pay attention to the available vinyl both width and length. Allow a couple inches at the back and I usually allow about 1/2" at least on each side. When I use SCALP I change the cutting mat size to custom based on those dimensions previously measured and then from that point go on with cutting and it should work out for you. If you have a pen attachment and some butcher paper you can experiment with that rather than learning at the expense of vinyl. you will have some learning to do but there is plenty of great tech advice here.

Has anyone heard or had conversations about any tiling tools in the future plans (hopefully short term) for the program? I am really, REALLY missing having the ability to decide what portions of my designs I want to cut. Any who are familiar with SignCut know what I am talking about. I don't know anything about SB to compare but in SC you can add tiling lines and isolate a specific part of your desing to cut and exclude everything else. I use it every sing time I cut almost without exception. It helps to avoid having to use a large piece of vinyl for a single element in a design that may be a different color. You add tile lines all the way arounf it and exclude everything but what you want and SC tells you in the preview section how big the final item will be and you can jcut use a piece of scrap and cut that one little thing out of a large design without the cutter needing vinyl the size of the entire design. I also use this element occasionally to cut a repar patch if I messed up on an install and need to re-do one letter or a small portion on a large design that had a problem. Way handy! SCALP has the weeding lines so its not too much of a stretch to be expecting to do this. Kind of long description, sorry. If they aren't planning on adding something like this it is probably going to be a deal breaker for me. Paul

Been almost a month and I have had a few chances to play with the program a little more. I do my graphic work in AI but I decided to play around a little with the design capability and was pleasantly surprised at how well it did. I was actually surprised at the ease of use on the text edit menu and the ability to stretch and modify live text very much like AI. I can honestly say that if I didn't already have AI I would be comfortable working with the program and it will be a good backup if my other computer goes down. I think I like SCALP better than Inkscape. Its a little more user friendly or maybe a little more like AI not sure why but I definitely prefer it. A lot of my work is traced images from existing logos where they don't have the original vector. The tracing operation is a little different but once you're used to it it works fine. I think its going to be a great program for USCutter to sell with cutters. There are still a lot of things that need attention and I know they are working on them and making regular progress. I had initially found that SCALP seemed to progress through the cuts almost in a sensible order like step by step cutting but as I have had opportunity to use it a bit more I think that was just a fluke with that particular design so hopefully they will continue to improve some of the cutting utilities including step-by-step and tiling.

I would recomend using "minus front" which will accomplish what you want without leaving anything in the hole you are trying to create. Some cut programs like SignCut will recognize the knock out letters as objects of their own and male a second pass over that area when you are cutting. I use merge sparingly due to this little issue and usually go into the layers list and find the open objects and delete them. not sure what cut software you use so maybe its not an issue with your program.

Merge is pretty handy for certain applications like what you are doing here. I use "Unite" whenever I can and it doesn't cause the same problem I don't believe that any of the exclude options do either but I can't remember right off. Seems like "Merge" is the main culprit but there are some actions that only merge can complete. Once you are aware of the problem its not too big of a deal. I have found a lot of pre-built vectors come in with a lot of empty objects also I assume they are a product of the designers save options or program. It's nice to be able to pick them apart. You may also note that you can order your cuts by stacking them in the order you want and SignCut will follow the stack, usually from bottom to top which can be nice on jobs with a lot of small elements so you don't have to have your cutter jumping all over the vinyl. (Assuming you didn't already draw them in order or if they got re-ordered during the build process)

When you use "merge" Illustrator creates a separate object in the open holes. Usually they are transparent/no fill, so SC is interpreting them as black for some reason. I usually go into the layer stack and check for objects with no fill color and delete them before I send them to SC. If you select them from the layers panel you can see where they are and you will know if you wanted them there or not. I found for me in SC that it would basically double cut all these spots and often pull up some of the vinyl in the process. You will find these two holes at the very bottom of the stack in the layers panel which is how SC interprets what to cut first. If you try it with the top object a different color like grey or something its a little easier to find the problem objects.

Won't you have to use app tape to stack the three colored layers? That means you would also have to try and cut through that as well. I don't think its a feasable way to do it. I am not familar with Corel but the design could be built in AI easily enough. If you have the camo vector can't you layer the final design over the top and trim the excess to give you the three color layers that you're looking for? With the camo design you might want to think about overlap of the colors. The lower layer(s) might need some modification so you can get a little overlap and not end up with gaps. It would depend on your existing vector camo design.

I finally got around to cutting a job using SCALP. I have been hesitant to waste vinyl with some sort of mistake and have mostly just been using the plotting pen. I was very satisfied with the cut. It went about it differently and I had to go into the cut by color menu and deselect a couple stray items that somehow found their way in but it did a good job. One interesting thing I noticed was the way it chose to work down through the lettering I was doing. It was definitely different than SignCut which follows the stacking order of the design. I'm not quite sure if I am happy with letting go of having control over the cut sequence or relieved that I can skip that on my design checklist. I sometimes spend quite a bit of time re-ordering things to make the cut track as fluid as possible rather than jumping around in the order I drew things. SCALP was sort of like a modified step by step cutting although that would neccessarily change had my design been one with a large object spanning the design. This project was a 12"x 36" quote from the constitution for someones rear window so it was just a bunch of words. I have also noted for design glitch complaints that if for any reason you stop a cut in progress it will freeze up SCALP to the point you have to kill it in the program manager and start over. Thats just a weird quirk really and quirky can be dealt with. SignCut does the same thing if I forget to hook up the USB cable to the cutter, freaks it out for some reason. All in all as they proceed to make the improvements that are still in the works I can see this being a great program. I don't use the editing end of it because I draw everything in AI but its a nice change to have it there if I find something I screwed up I cold just fix it right there. I'm also loving that I can import CS5 version artwork from AI. There is still a problem with the colors coming through the transfer but I'm sure they will cure that one easily enough.