artwork for viny cutting

[PhoenixRisen]

Hi Mandy - an interesting free program which I use for tracing logos and the like is 'Inkscape' which you can obtain from http://www.filehippo.com

To trace something you select the image which can be jpg, bmp, gif, plus plenty of others, then go to [Paths], and choose [Trace Bitmap] option. There are a few options which can be selected from the dialogue box to help in improving the final trace. Inkscape will trace colour images as well as mono. The result can be saved in a number of formats including .eps which some cutting software prefers. My own developing website is http://www.PhoenixGraphix.co.uk In the gallery are a few jobs I have been involved in and some of those cuts are ones that I have developed. The trucks belonging to KTC, I photographed the logo on one of their other trucks using a digital camera, then used Inkscape to develop the logo/graphic. As for specific fonts, unless you have the time to compare an original with the thousands available, you are better off asking the customer what lettering they use.

A couple of other sites you may like to look at:

http://seeklogo.com logos
http://brandsoftheworld.com logos
http://abstractfonts.com fonts

Mal

[AJLA]

Very interesting, had a look at your site and if you have used the software with these I will certainly have a look at it as I have yet again the same problem with Corel and I can't use it, it constantly closed down during a job and occasionally shits the pc down too, it really is frustrating.

[AJLA]

Just to let you know I have downloaded it so I will attempt to use it later today, Thanks.
I forgot to ask..does it work with the Craft Robo?

[PhoenixRisen]

Hi Mandy,

I cannot answer that at the moment as I do not have a craft robo - my cutter is a Roland Camm-1 24". For cutting vinyl I use Easysign V.5 which is a professional signwriting software. Vinyl cutters are usually vector cutters and the software required, even its own basic software, usually has an import option to import .eps (encapsulated postscript) files.

For dye-sub I use either Photoshop PS2 or Easysign. Inkscape is what I mostly use to make a vector cuttable graphic from .jpg files from the digi-camera.

Mal.

[PhoenixRisen]

Hi Mandy again - I have just looked on the graphtec website (who make craft robo) and had a look at one of their manuals. The files craft robo require are .dxf (Autocad format) files. Inkscape will save images in .dxf format. So you just load in your .jpg, .bmp, .tif, .gif, or whatever and vectorise it using the [Path], [Trace Bitmap] dialogs, then save it as a .dxf file. Your Robo Master software should load the .dxf file.

Hope I have been of help.

Mal.