Cutting Order - Versaworks/Adobe Illustrator

[Custom_Grafx]

Please see attached pic. The real file in question, is a range of random small shapes like this - the area is 1500mm x 600mm or so.

- Customer supplied vector art (illustrator)

- The order of objects (there are around 570), when viewed in the layers
pallette, are very far apart

- Versaworks obviously takes its info in the layers order of illustrator, so is cutting one shape, then has to move 1000mm to cut the next shape

- This obviously wastes a lot of time

- I cannot split up the cutting into sections. It must be cut in one hit.

- My question is, If I split the art into say 4 quarters in illustrator, by creating a layer for each quarter, will the hierarchy of versaworks cutting order interpret this as "cut layer 1 first, then move to layer 2? I suppose I can test this on a smaller scale to find out, but just wondering if anyone has any experience with a similar matter, running the same setup (VW and Ai).

 

[Malkin]

I am very nearly sure that yes, it will cut the layers in order.
The items on the bottom of the layer stack will cut first.

 

[Custom_Grafx]

Thanks Malkin I hope so. If they want more of these later on, I was even thinking it worthwhile to manually rearrange the layers, which I wasn't looking forward to.

Thankfully I was able to up the upspeed during the job which was better than nothing but still, the job took much longer than it should have.

I will test out this work around and report back with results.

It would be nice if vw could somehow auto optimize that kind of thing.

 

[GAC05]

Will Versaworks reorder the cut of a single layer or color?
I don't have vw but Flexi has this option in the program manager.
If vw did you could merge down to a single layer and get the best sort order.

wayne k
guam usa

 

[Custom_Grafx]

It's currently on a single layer, but it's obviously been authored in a random manner - from top to bottom, left to right, so the layer order is all over the place.

There are no options for layer ordering in VW that I am aware of.

I am also unaware of any filters or plug ins for Ai which optimise the order of objects so that they are layered in order of relative distance to each other.

 

[GAC05]

Gotcha,
Do you have access to CorelDraw (X3 and up)?
http://www.signs101.com/forums/showthread.php?t=66315
Might be worth picking up a copy plus the plug-in if you need to do a lot of those types of files. If they are on their way to the plotter a round trip through Draw shouldn't cause any issues. I do all my cut files in Corel and drop them into Flexi for plotting.

good luck with this

wayne k
guam usa

 

[Malkin]

I once had a similar job, 600-700 random words/objects spread over (3) 4' x 12' print/cut runs. I decided to optimize the cutting order for faster production/better registration.

Basically I just got real familiar with the "send to back" shortcut key, starting with the objects to cut last and finishing with the ones to cut first. Took a while, but the results were worth it.

 

[Custom_Grafx]

Gotcha,
Do you have access to CorelDraw (X3 and up)?
http://www.signs101.com/forums/showthread.php?t=66315
Might be worth picking up a copy plus the plug-in if you need to do a lot of those types of files. If they are on their way to the plotter a round trip through Draw shouldn't cause any issues. I do all my cut files in Corel and drop them into Flexi for plotting.

good luck with this

wayne k
guam usa

Wow that's a great plug in to know about. My laser actually automatically optimizes rather well fortunately but still great to have for the roland.

I use x3 so this should work fine.

This has made me curious to know if there is maybe a nesting plug in for corel or ai. I'm guessing there must be.

Thank you for the tip!

 

[Custom_Grafx]

I once had a similar job, 600-700 random words/objects spread over (3) 4' x 12' print/cut runs. I decided to optimize the cutting order for faster production/better registration.

Basically I just got real familiar with the "send to back" shortcut key, starting with the objects to cut last and finishing with the ones to cut first. Took a while, but the results were worth it.

That's a good way to do it, I hadn't thought of that! Will keep in mind for next time. This artwork would be pretty time consuming though sigh.

That x3 plug in is looking pretty good.

 

[Custom_Grafx]

Ok, it worked

I split the artwork up into 8 layers from top to bottom.

Select, group, cut, create new layer, paste in new layer, repeat in 8 segments.

Roland is now happily cutting in order from top to bottom