coreldraw to vinylmaster troubles.

[Macee80 5]

Hi All, i had been using coreldraw to cut with prior to this, as we all know that can be hit or miss, now i have bought a new cutter, and it came with vinyl master cut,  im not real smooth with vinyl master yet, its a struggle.

coreldraw on the other hand i have used enough to get pretty good with it.

 

so here is what i am trying to do.

my step father wants a 4th armored division decal for him and his army friends.  i went ahead and said sure i can do this for you guys, seeing how its a layered job and doesnt seem to bad. 

Boy i was wrong.

 

So from the start to where i am now.

copied the image into coreldraw, traced it, wasn't happy with the way it came out, some lines that should have been straight were curved ect..

so i redrew it in autocad, perfect, printed it into pdf form, then copied and pasted into coreldraw, i was going to make layers and such in there to make the process easier in vinylmaster.

when i pasted the pdf into corel draw some of the lines were lined up or connected completely, went ahead and spent some time fixing that within coreldraw, only for it to do the same thing in vinylmaster when i pasted into vinylmaster.

 

this is the image i am trying to replicate.

this is my autocad drawing, in pdf form copied into corel draw.

 

this too is the pdf file, notice how the circle do not align, when i drew this in autocad, i made on of these ovals, and offset the outter portion, also in autocad everything was aligned and joined together as one piece, i then copied them around the outside to replicate the original 4th armored division patch.

 

after placing in vinylmaster, it looks the same as it does in corel draw, did a test cut just to see what would happen, and it cut just as it is shown above.

could the line weights i am using in autocad be the problem?

 

 

my question is, can i make this work in vinylmaster without having to redraw this?  i dont know my way around vinylmaster well enough to do this in any way, shape or form, fast.

 

any tips, or advice would be great, and if this is something that cant be done, or i have it butchered beyond repair, so be it.

thanks

 

showing the problem in vinylmaster too.

 

[Dakotagrafx 7,297]

first question is why didn't you export the autocad file as a dxf?  then import that into corel draw to make the other changes you wanted (or just create it in corel draw to start with.  then export that file as a .eps and IMPORT it into vinylmaster.    not sure about you but I have not had consistent results ever copy and pasting them between programs and that is why they have the export and import to preserve the integrity of the file.  I am guessing you design on corel as you are proficient in that and unable to do some things you can do in corel then . . . sure seems like a long way around but if it works - just don't copy and paste

[Macee80 5]

Just now, Dakotagrafx said:

first question is why didn't you export the autocad file as a dxf?  then import that into corel draw to make the other changes you wanted (or just create it in corel draw to start with.  then export that file as a .eps and IMPORT it into vinylmaster.    not sure about you but I have not had consistent results ever copy and pasting them between programs and that is why they have the export and import to preserve the integrity of the file.  I am guessing you design on corel as you are proficient in that and unable to do some things you can do in corel then . . . sure seems like a long way around but if it works - just don't copy and paste

yes, i almost always start a design in corel, its just easier in my opinion. i hate to say this, but i always copy and past, and usually have good luck with it, but i have never imported a file into vinylmaster.  i will give this a shot and see what happens.

being that i use autocad everyday for work, that is my "go to" for things like this, ill try the .DFX too, never gave that  a thought. duh.

im pretty new to the vinyl world as far as complex stuff goes.

 

 

 

[Dakotagrafx 7,297]

I used to work in a GIS shop for 3 years so I know about getting comfortable in autocad and can understand using what you are familiar with.  I have Corel and illy but I have used flexi for so many years I go there first even though the other two are more powerful

[Guest VinylMaster Support]

One of the things you need to be careful of when using DXF files, is that sometimes the line segments are actually split into hundreds of single lines that look like they join up, but each is loaded in as a separate object.

There was a recent improvement to the DXF capabilities in VinylMaster so you may want to download the most recent version from

fcws1.com/usc.htm

As for your file, there may be a much easier way for you to accomplish your goals.

If you lodge a ticket at http://iifuture.net/support/ we can get you to submit a sample file you are trying to work with, so that we can assist you to find the easiest way to quickly achieve the results you need.

[dcbevins 340]

3D programs use splines and other mechanisms that are not available in 2D programs.  You can get a great many unwanted results bringing in a dxf file into a 2d vector graphic environment.  Curves and circles might get converted to line segments, some paths may not be closed and other strangeness may follow. 

I too understand working with what your comfortable with.  The problem is that 3D is a different animal than 2D.  If your starting from scratch anyway, you could dodge some issues designing in the 2D program.

[Macee80 5]

So i imported the DFX file, although that worked great, ive found out that this is indeed to small for me to work with, i cant get clean cuts in the smaller areas, even on my slowest setting on the cutter. im really just not happy the way it was turning out, i cant spend 30-40 minutes weeding something so small.

im not going to give up on this, just try to tweak some stuff to make it work better, i didnt want to make this a huge decal, but the smaller it is, the harder.

 

 

thanks for the help, i appreciate it a ton.

 

[Dakotagrafx 7,297]

add all that to age and it gets worse.  I used to do insanely small detail and that isn't possible anymore but I also realized that those small pieces usually don't have enough adhesive left on them to be durable.  so aging eyes and experience has taught me to not do that crazy small stuff anymore