Need Help Illustrator And Versa Question

[crny1]

Hello all,
I am just 2 years in and still learning daily but I have a question that I cant quite figure out. I am getting into work now that is smaller instead of large solid prints. The small odd shaped stuff is creating a lot of wasted material. Is there a way to take a design in Illustrator and cut it up and take the small cut off piece and place it on the artboard to require less material? In the example I attached, if the overall width of the shape is 50" wide (54" printer) and the height is 80" tall then there would be alot of waste on 54" material. Is there a way to slice off the bottom rectangle, turn it 90 degrees and to save material? Hope this makes sense? Can anyone enlighten me, is this possible?

Thanks in advance

 

[GAC05]

One way to do this would be to draw a rectangle around the part(s) you want to save. Make sure it is on top (front) - select all and make a clipping mask. Once you have that fit the art board to the clipping mask.
"Save-as"- enable the "use art boards" option.
You should end up with a file that is the size of your clipping mask.

wayne k
guam usa

 

[TravinFlavin]

If I'm understanding you correctly, chopping off the little piece on the bottom is quite simple. Just use the Pen Tool to draw a line through the image where you want to make the cut. Then select both the image and the line, hit Divide from Pathfinder, then Ungroup the new image. Now you should have two pieces you can move independently.

I'm curious, though; if you don't need to retain that shape, why use it in the first place? Couldn't you just draw the shape you want the first time around?

Hope that helps

 

[Johnny Best]

I hope I am understanding what you need to do also. Just make two rectangles and stack.

 

[Solventinkjet]

Ask yourself if the time you are using to figure it out and the time to patch everything back together is worth the savings and then just price the waste into your products and live worry free.

 

[TimToad]

Can't you just adjust your artboard size to that of your print? As far as rotating or moving your print to create multiples, maximize yield and minimize waste, that all gets done in VersaWorks.

 

[crny1]

Sorry for the delay all. I guess I didnt give enough details. If its something as simple as 2 rectangles I know to use path finder options to divide etc etc.
Most of our odd shapes are a clipping mask to begin with that have a high resolution picture clipped into the shape. I cant, that I am aware of just break it apart.
As far as figuring out if my time is worth it to figure out and piece back together.......well I think it may be. I would rather not up the price on my customers if I dont have too. If it can be done with a few clicks of the mouse. Now....if its complicated to do then thats another story.
Artboard size, most every thing we do is atleast 1/4 scale due to final production size and illustrators art board limitaion. Even nesting files in versa doesnt seem to save much material.
Does this make more sense with the shape being a clipping mask to begin with?
Thanks

 

[GAC05]

Sorry for the delay all. I guess I didnt give enough details. If its something as simple as 2 rectangles I know to use path finder options to divide etc etc.
Most of our odd shapes are a clipping mask to begin with that have a high resolution picture clipped into the shape. I cant, that I am aware of just break it apart.
As far as figuring out if my time is worth it to figure out and piece back together.......well I think it may be. I would rather not up the price on my customers if I dont have too. If it can be done with a few clicks of the mouse. Now....if its complicated to do then thats another story.
Artboard size, most every thing we do is atleast 1/4 scale due to final production size and illustrators art board limitaion. Even nesting files in versa doesnt seem to save much material.
Does this make more sense with the shape being a clipping mask to begin with?
Thanks

Makes no difference, you can clip masked objects inside of of another mask.
As long as you shrink the art board down to the size of the new piece you want to print and enable the "use art board" option on export when you open it up in your RIP, it will be clipped to the size of the mask.

wayne k
guam usa

 

[crny1]

Wayne, Thanks. I will have to search some videos and stuff to figure out that method.

 

[Malardalensbildekor]

I think the best way to do this is in VersaWorks
Use the tile function and tile the big square as one tile and then the rectangle as one tile and the waste as one tile, you can then set how much overlap you want to have, right click on the tile including the waste so that it will not print that, then go where you set number of copies and width of material, mark the rectangle tile and flip it over, press print.

 

[SlikGRFX]

In terms of the final product, is your customer happy having a join in their artwork just so you can save material? I don't know where this is for, but lets say it is an image for the side of a vehicle. I wouldn't want you to tile the job if you didn't have to. It doesn't look tidy and can affect the durability of the graphics.

You should price it into the job or find a way of using the excess material. I set up a business card sized decal with my shop logo and phone number on to give away to potential customers. I'd just drop a bunch of them onto the job to fill any large gaps.

 

[crny1]

SlikGRFX
I understand your point completely but all these jobs are from a distance enough that you would never see a seam. We would never do this on something that you would be up close too or have the ability to see.
I cannot really add to the price to compensate do to there are only a couple of us doing these specific jobs and we are all priced the same within a few cents of one another.

 

[Bmhdg1976]

SlikGRFX
I understand your point completely but all these jobs are from a distance enough that you would never see a seam. We would never do this on something that you would be up close too or have the ability to see.
I cannot really add to the price to compensate do to there are only a couple of us doing these specific jobs and we are all priced the same within a few cents of one another.

You have kind of given yourself an answer.
Do the others produce theirs with a seam/tiled?
If not I certainly wouldn't be.
If I was the customer I would go for the one the would supply it in one continuous piece.

 

[crny1]

To anser that, yes others seam it as well.