Planning/Maximising Layout for cut vinyl

[Jill Marie Welsh]

Luckily, years before I ever dreamed I’d be a sign person I loved to sew. And I could get the most out of every yard of material I ever bought.
The same applies to cut vinyl.

In your design program, draw up your various decals to scale.
The draw a rectangle as big as your vinyl will be.
Then just make copies of the decal sizes and move them onto the rectangle.
It’s easy to see just how much material you’ll need.
Not very scientific but it’s accurate.
Love….Jill

[Alan Wharton]

on vinyl master pro once you send all the gfx to the print spooler you just hit the squish button and it auto compresses all the gfx into the smallest area, you can also manualy position all the gfx, when its all done it shows to the mm how much vinyl it will use.
what software do you use !

[Gavin Conway]

I agree with Jill – As I’m a small time signman I do quite a lot of small jobs and logos etc.. All I do is after I have done the design work i just set up the vinyl width on the program (WinPcSign) and place the designs / layers accordingly to use least vinyl.. I also look at the time involved in the cutting / weeding etc versus the job pricing so sometimes I use a bit more vinyl to save on time setting layers etc. and loose a few pennies on the vinyl.. Time is money!!

[Emma Louise Oates]

Hiya,

Jill and Gavin, thanks for the tips! I can see where the sewing expertise comes into it…that’s to you Jill, not Gavin…although you may be a sewing man yourself 😉 I will give this method a go later today.

To answer your question Alan, I use photoshop, illustrator and from there cutting master which is the software that came with the Graphtec. I’ve looked into a few software options and just been having a read on Vinyl Master Pro. I’ve actually ordered the demo disc just now. That little option you talk of sounds like heaven haha Am I right in thinking it’s possible to just import images as needed into this software and use it as a design package- thus doing away with illustrator as such and having everything in one place, design and cut?

Thanks for all your help guys and gals 🙂

Emma

[Graeme Harrold]

Ive given up trying to squeeze every last square cm out of a sheet of vinyl as you can spend more time jiggling things around rather than just cutting and application (within reason!!)

[Alan Wharton]

yep vmp does all that import/design/cut, it imports/exports most file types, very good software for the money. what version have you got the demo for ! if its the early version it doesnt like windows7, win xp and earlier its fine, earlier version can be a faf about setting it up to work with the usb on the graphtec (i use graphtec cutter also) the later new version is usb compatable, if you have probs setting it up to your cutter give me a shout and il run thru the setup with you.

[Matty Goodwin]

After looking at your pic, I’ll gladly come and show you how to squeeze it all in!

(vinyl that is!)

Matt

[Emma Louise Oates]

Thanks for all the help!

Agreed with the squeezing every last cm out of vinyl Graeme, I think it’s more about a nice neat(ish) layout for working out how much vinyl I need. Although I’m pretty sure I’ll get it all easily from a 5m roll. Maybe that was a question I should have stuck in there, working out amount of vinyl needed…Maths is not my strong point at all, although on a Monday morning I don’t think I have any strong points!

The demo I’ve ordered Alan I believe to be the latest version. It does everything other than actually allow to cut from it so will give me a good chance t try it out. I’ll be sure to give you a shout for help if I get stuck and you don’t mind 🙂

Matt, thanks for your kind offer, maybe if you lived locally could take you up on the it?! Sounds like you’re a bit of an expert. Your kindness certainly brightened this grey, rainy morning :lol1:

Well, better get ready, early visit to the vets with one of my dogs. Considerate as always he’s also managed to keep me awake half the night barking and generally being a pain in the ar*e- for the third night running!

Emma

[John Harding]

as Graeme mentioned already better not to waste too much time trying to maximize the best from every last inch of vinyl (vinyl being much cheaper than your time) for me designing in Flexi (I know you dont use flexi but there may be a similar feature in other programmes) I use step and repeat function – just draw a rectangle 1m long x the width of your plotter/printer then place the object in the corner and by multiplying the number of copies length and width you can quickly see how many items fill a linear meter of vinyl great for costing jobs and pricing quickly 😀

[Emma Louise Oates]

Certainly sounds like the quickest and easiest method John. I think I’ve worked out a complicated pricing structure…I have quoted for each individual decal and to be honest don’t know if it’s over priced or not! Will soon see when it’s rejected or accepted! The man I’m quoting for worked in the sign industry himself until recently so I’m a bit worried he may faint at the prices. Still trying to get my head around pricing. Trying to get the business up and running around 9-5 work so progress is really, really slow. Started off as a partnership then once equipment etc was bought and I’d done a lot of planning the other person pulled out. Typical considering it was their idea initially… We do mainly decals for decorative purposes, household walls, cars, etc etc at the moment, on a supply only basis rather than signs if you know what I mean. Anyway battling on just wish I could put far more time into it and iron out such problems/learning curves as I go really. Everyones help on here is really appreciated! Looking forward to the day when can be of much use to someone else!

[John Harding]

Sounds just like me when I started out I didnt have a business plan and made it up as I went along terrible really, we all struggle getting pricing right without under/over charging even now I sometimes question what ive done

John

[Michael Dunn]

found this today em whilst looking for a different function macro

may be of interest – it does what you’re after albeit in corel – which might be a drawback if you use ai

http://eng.plotcalc.com/learning1.php

micky

[Hugh Potter]

same as Jill for me,

draw a rectangle of the size required, put all the bits in and draw on your weed/cut lines to aid weeding, just remember that the cutter wil cut in the order you make the lines so try to start ne end and finish the other or, your length of vinyl will be travelling up n down for aged which increases the rish of the tracking shifting slightly.

Hugh

[Karen Spooner]

Me too, set my default sheet size to max cut width (555mm) by 1m. Do the design to scale (obviously) then separate all the colours (assuming it’s layered vinyl) then stack it all up, adjusting the length of the sheet accordingly. Save this as a cut file, ideal for repeat jobs.

[Alan Wharton]

i think you will like vmp when you get it as it does more or less everything that has been said above, all you need to do is set the vinyl width and it does the rest, squishes everything up for you in 2secs flat, it also auto seperates the colours if using more than 1, even tells you which colour to put in the cutter next, then once its all cut the cut file goes into the DONE folder and stays there so if you need repeat work months down the line its there ready to cut in seconds.