SCALP Tiling tools?

[Wildgoose 4,200]

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

[MZ SKEETER 4,708]

I was just messing around with the software. And I can select any portion of the design to cut individually. Did you ungroup the design first? You must. Then select what you want to cut from the design. Is this what you are referring to? Here I selected 1 of the socks from the original design.

[Wildgoose 4,200]

I tried what you suggest. I can select individual objects but it won't cut just that item.

Here is a scenario: The sock in your design is on a sign that is 50" tall. The wind was blowing and the tip of the toe got caught in a wind gust and folded onto itself. You had to trim it off of the sign and have to run back and re-cut the design to stick a patch on that part of the sign. You just need the tip of that one sock and at the 50" sign size the patch will be about 4" square if you can just select and cut the very tip that you need. Otherwise you have to re-cut the whole sock or perhaps the whole design in order to make one repair.

Scenario two: This one actually happened to me. You are cutting vinyl to go on an 8ft long banner. 3/4 of the way through the design your cutter glitches out and stops cutting for whatever reson (in my case static electricity problem) you now have 6ft of an 8ft design. Do you scrap the whole 6ft and hope the next time it doesn't do it again or do you re-cut the last 2ft that didn't make it allowing for a little overlap and tile the project wasting only a few inches of the precious vinyl you specifically ordered in for your client (and don't have extra)?

If you can draw a selection box around the part you want to cut and it will just cut that part then that would be great but I can't get it to work. I can't even get mine to just cut the selected item let alone a partion of it.

[Wildgoose 4,200]

I played around and found a way to somewhat accomplish an isolated cut. If you shrink the mat size down and drag the graphics over it until what you want cut is the only thing on the mat it will ignore the rest. I guess thats something.

[Racer88 24]

Could you change the color of the sock, then just cut that color?

[sharbold 2]

Another way to print certain parts of your design is to first turn on your layers window. Then if you have grouped your design Ungroup it. Then in the layers window just turn off everything except for the objects you want to cut. Then select cut and the only items on the cut screen should be the items you left turned on.

[Wildgoose 4,200]

You guys aren't getting what I'm talking about. If the sock is huge and you still have to re-cut the whole thing then you have to waste a whole bunch of vinyl. As I ponder this issue another part of the equation comes into focus:

How do you cut something that is bigger than the vinyl you have? I don't find any options to input your vinyl size other than using the mat size. So what happens as in scenario #1 if that sock is 50" tall and your using 24" vinyl? Is there even a way to cut it at all without a tiling utility? Either you have your mat size reduced down to what you can cover with your vinyl or your cutting head will be running off the side of your vinyl and how are you going to control the next part of the graphic and for the scenario you will have to build a 50" sock in 3 parts assuming your using 24" vinyl. Some folks only run 15" and would need tling even more. Hopefully you can see my point and why this is a real concern if it's going to be a boni fide cutting software. What good is having a mat size large enough to build a 6ft graphic if you don't have the mechanics to actually cut that vinyl out?I feel like there is a whole facet to the program that got overlooked.

[mars 45]

For a $200 program it should have tools like tiling available. I bought it - for the sale price - but haven't activated it yet. So I think my 2 cents is worth putting into the conversation.

I would also like to see a duplicate/array function for when you want to make a sheet of small stickers.

I am going to start a wishlist topic and put these requests there - I hope the topic makes a good place for the developers to see requests for improvement all in one place..

-Mike

[Wildgoose 4,200]

I recieved an email from the design team. They indicate that tiling is in the works along with some import issues I was having with AI files. I have to say I am impressed with how well they are getting after all this stuff. They must be seriously burning the midnight oil. I applaud their efforts and feel much better knowing they are working on a tiling solution!

[vinylmotivations 143]

The developer on this software works A LOT at night- gets most of the coding refined between about 9 and midnight central time. Just ironed out the final details of contour cutting with the CE5000 in both HPGL and GPGL modes tonight with them. Now to get the FC7000 working.

All of this on top of the major fixes coming (eps support, ai import issues etc) as well as the advancements they are making. CRAZY STUFF.

Leaps and bounds in short order. We are talking about a hobby level software going pro in very short order here.

[Rodger 527]

That has been my impression also . I feel like I am " looking a gift horse in the mouth " , but I also would like some options that are in other softwares . I liked the ability of SignCut to cut small parts of decals that needed replaced for any reason , including what was already mentioned . There is MUCH in SignBlazer I really like . Is there a place on the SCALPro forum to make suggestions ? I have not read any replies from SCALPro people here in the thread about " wants/requests " .