question for vinyl cutting experts on software

[neonelite]

thanx mates!

[Karl Williams]

Dave, if no one knows they can’t help. I would if I could but I can’t on this one.

[neonelite]

wasn’t such a difficult question, i figured…

thanx anyway, thought i had to be a paying member to get an answer. 😕

[Karl Williams]

No. Not everyone on here knows the answer to everything. But you will find everyone helps as much as they can.

[Nick Minall]

I don’t think many have Macs, and cutting software for Macs is very limited.

Sorry cant help you.

Nick.

[Phill Fenton]

I don’t use apple Mac and I don’t recognise the software you are using so my opinion would be useless.

I’m sure the reason you didn’t receive a reply was because the software you mentioned is not as well known as others.

Your software vendor should be able to advise what operating systems will allow your program to run.

[John Childs]

neon,

I saw your question but know nothing about your hardware so thought I’d leave it in the hope that somebody who knew what they were talking about jumped in.

However, as they haven’t, and for what it is worth, I’ll give you a general opinion.

Software written for OS9 isn’t going to work on OSX. Your easy way out is to see if the authors of your software have written an OSX version and, if they have, buy a copy.

Other than that you will need to find an alternative programme. Like Nick says, there isn’t much choice and you will have to have a look around at what there is to find something that suits the way you work. You could start here. http://www.softeamweb.com

[Neil Davey]

Neon

Never heard of the software you have, but…

Mac OSX 10.3.9 runs software in classic mode which is OS9.1 and 9.2. You will have a file on your HD with all your OS9.0 applications in.

You may need to install OS9.2 if you haven’t already.

In case your unfamiliar with classic mode, it opens a window similar to that in OS9.2.

Hope that makes some sense!!!

Neil

[Martin Pearson]

David, as has been said above very few people use Mac’s on this forum so the chances of you getting an answer that was of much use to you is quite remote. I would start by contacting the software vendor to see if there is an upgrade or a patch that would allow you to continue as you are rather than have to learn a new program. As for new software like everyone else I use a PC so don’t know what software to suggest.
If you read through some of the other posts you will see that there are loads of questions from people like yourself that haven’t paid any sort of membership fee and these questions sometimes have loads of answers it all depends on the question asked and the knowledge of the members. The advantage of paying a membership fee is it allows you to access other areas of the site for things like file sharing, video demos etc.. etc..
You could try doing a search on the boards to see if someone has had a similar problem in the past but I don’t think you will have a lot of luck.

[Faye Dunmall]

Hi there,

I don’t know much about cutting software in general but i do have an unhealthy fetish for all things mac. A quick look on signalize’s webiste reveals that version 5.7 is osx tiger compatible. Whether you can download this as un update or you have to buy the new release version I don’t know, sorry.

Hope this helps a little!

[John Childs]

Nice one Faye. 😀

Which raises another point neon. Why are you upgrading to 10.3.9 when the current version is about 10.4.8?

To run a Tiger version of your software you will need at least 10.4.something.

[Jerry Bonham]

Hi David,
Fewer each year use Macs in the sign industry. It is a shame however I do think the trend will reverse over the next few years. I do so love Mac OSX. Supporting old hardware on a new OSX has been a big problem. We have a plugin for Illustrator CS2 only for Mac OSX (10.4 or later). It can also output HPGL or DMPL. There are all the drivers for normal popular brands of vinyl cutters. We do not support Zund (no reply to my email some years ago asking for command codes) as we have no access to their command codes. Outside of Europe, Zund are almost unknown. As to Gerber that is another kettle of fish. Again despite many emails and actual replies saying the request will be passed onto the right person we have NEVER had a reply from anyone remotely technical. So I gave up on Gerber as well. (This was after they publicly announced they would supply command codes to any developer) We used to support some of the very old Zund, Wild and Gerber machines.

It is harder now for software developers to obtain command codes. Fewer and fewer manufacturers are willing to give them to developers now. It is sad but Roland and Mimaki have also joined the ranks who refuse to give command codes to developers. Why?

I would have thought that having another product support your product would be the greatest free advertising you could have. So how do we actually write drivers for cutters and printers without command codes? I have to admit “with great difficulty”. This is why we have become so good at writing drivers for Chinese cutters. Most just give up when they try. What the problem here is that Chinese cutter manufacturers do not pay license fees to anyone. If you use HPGL in your cutter commands as a cutter manufacturer —-you are supposed to pay a license fee to HP. So instead they make strange & very weird variations of HPGL. Also in an attempt to stop western software developers driving them (again I ask why?) some Chinese cutter manufacturers have added weird initialisation strings that has to be sent to the cutter before it starts cutting. Again Why?

I am willing if you do not find a solution to compile a “try it out” version of our Illustrator CS2 plug for you if you think this might help. I can set to run for say 45 days. Is that enough time?

If you can obtain command codes then we may be able to help further. With those the rest is easy.

I think Signalize may still in business, have you tried to phone them from their website details?
http://www.signalize.com/
At least I think that this is the same company.
Good luck and if you need my help just ask.

One thing you can certainly count on in the sign industry is that fewer and fewer hardware manufacturers are being open about supplying command codes to support their products. This “closed shop” may in future years be the cause of decline of currently popular brands as others who are open increase their sales.

Now this flies against the “Open Source” movement. So maybe because old “fuddy duddies” now control a lot of the bigger hardware manufactures (they were young 20 years ago, now paranoid old men who want to hang onto everything they can because they can?) we will see much more hidebound introspective behaviour. And problems such as yours will just increase.

I can think of no greater arrogance than that of two of these manufacturers who think that if you do not buy their current recommendations for software or take their “freebie” software than you do not deserve to be in the sign industry. What happened to consumer choice?

So David, your predicament is just the start of this problem. Example from the future. Say you have just bought a “U Beaut” cut and print wide format printer or wide format printer in 2007. It is now 2009 and the second version of Vista is everywhere. The manufacturer of your printer tells you sorry, we have no intention of upgrading the software we supplied with your printer.
Now the printer works fine only you want to use it on your new computer with a terabyte of RAM.
Sorry you need to buy a new printer for 80,000 pounds or Euros!

See how important independent software vendors are? Believe me we will have a 2009 version ready to run on whatever Vista or OS is common. If we supported it in 2007 we will support the same machine in 2009.

So David, unfortunately you soon will have many new friends running Windows not Mac when in years to come manufacturers who have supplied “free” software (for which they have paid 10 bucks a copy to some poor struggling developer most likely in India or China somewhere) with their hardware. The software developer will not write an upgrade (and why should he?) unless the manufacturer pays for it to be done. What for a machine the manufacturer no longer sells? When writing the upgrade will cost the manufacturer thousands of Euros. No way it will happen. Pigs will fly first!

So if you buy very expensive hardware such a wide format printer—- I would ask the supplier to put writing that any software supplied with the wide format printers be available for current operating systems for the life of the wide format printer. If I was paying so much money (most cost more than a new car with only a tenth of the parts of a car) for a wide format printer then I would expect at least five even maybe 7 years or more years out of it. Now five years in terms of computers is a long time. Especially with all the changes about to take place and are taking place.

If he refuses then ask he supplies software that can be upgraded and if the software developer will give this assurance.

Oh, I have to put in this last comment, sorry I type fast, so tend to be a bit verbose on certain subjects. Currently there a huge number of vinyl cutters supplied with 32 bit USB drivers. Most of these are so badly written we refuse to put them into our installation program and leave it to users to install it from the CDs supplied. Some are still USB 1 (Windows 98 but runs on XP) and some are USB2 for Windows XP. However where are the USB drivers for Vista from the majors?

What they think we will not buy a new computer with Vista until they allocate the budget to whatever small developer they used to write it in the first place?

Hey guys we have big problem looming here. I have fired off about 20 emails to various hardware manufacturers (including all the big ones) looking for 64 bit USB drivers. Guess how many replies I have had saying – here Jerry is our latest 64 driver. NOT ONE. We already have clients running the 32 bit version of Vista and luckily we were able to use a third party USB to serial converter that works fine with Vista. Oh, to my surprise Vista WILL run on 512MB of Ram on a laptop computer! SignBlazer Elements ran faultlessly and quite fast. However of the other software the client had would either not install or install and not run! Certainly the USB driver that came with the cutter did not work.

So here we have a situation the same as David’s in a different area. The cutter concerned comes from one of the larger cutter manufacturer. It has serial and USB port. So on a new computer we have to use a USB to serial converter instead of being able to use the USB cable and USB port on the cutter.

Oh I just have to have one more soap box oration. I have looked at some of the RIP software supplied with the more famous or certainly popular wide format printers. Frankly I was shocked. You the poor buyer have no choice when you want the most popular wide format printer. The RIP is just rubbish. Full of bugs and so memory hungry you have to have 2 GB of RAM just to print from the software anything bigger than a couple of metres in length. Cannot even import an embedded ICC profile so how could you possibly ever get the color you want. Another thing I just love is the RIP is CMYK and get this — they tell you to buy a copy of Corel which cannot produce CMYK vector files in eps format.
I think that I have written enough here to start several lines of discussion— if anyone reads my soapbox rave? There are several very good developers of RIP programs. However if the so called industry leaders will not supply these RIP developers with command codes and give rubbish RIPs away with their printers then what future is there?

General detailed technical knowledge (who really wants to know except technical geeks such myself) does not exist in users mostly for the large part in the sign industry and it appears these big three or two are taking advantage of this by supplying hardware that is made to lowest acceptable specification and software to the same low specs.

If it works and produces commercially acceptable work then let it go to market. I actually heard these words (or close) from one of the CEOs of one the big two companies in the sign industry.

What happened to the idea of excellence in product and service. Huh! I am old fashioned.

Again David, if I can help I will. At least as a company we do still do development for Mac OS X. I have noticed that most of the other sign software developers have ceased to support Mac. What a shame. What does that tell you?

[Karl Williams]

I could have told you that!!! 😀 😀 😀 😀 :funky:

[Alan Drury]

Jerry, I’m not sure you are correct regarding Corel and cmyk eps files.
Alan D

[David Milisock]

Unfortunately there are many falsehoods posted and printed about CorelDRAW, mostly from Adobe and MAC users. I have been printing professional level output from CorelDRAW and Photo-PAINT since 1994 and the issues that occur with Corel EPS, PS or PDF are the same issues that pop up with Adobe or Quark files. NON-postscript compliant file creation, just poor or lazy designers and limitations due to RIP and print driver design.

I have used Corel EPS,PS and PDF in Agfa Apogee, Heidelberg Meta Dimensions, Rampage, Onyx, Feiry and Graphics Global Harlequin Express workflows jut to name a few.

[Jerry Bonham]

quote Alan Drury:

Jerry, I’m not sure you are correct regarding Corel and cmyk eps files.
Alan D

Hello Alan,
Currently I have Corel 12. As I rarely use Corel I only upgrade every two years so I will upgrade this year and look forward to seeing if Corel has changed.
I have been totally unable to make the Corel 12 color management do anything. In my experience if I change any of the default ICC profiles (settings) in Corel 12 I get weird color. Also I have been unable to make up ICC profiles to replace the default Corel ICC profiles.

What I found very strange is that Corel apparently will allow you to produce a CMYK raster files with an embedded ICC profile however not a CMYK vector file for ESP export.

Alan, all my attempts to produce a CMYK vector EPS files from Corel 12 with or without an embedded profile have failed.
If you can produce from Corel 12 a purely vector CMYK EPS file with an embedded ICC profile then I would love to
a. Have copy of it
b. Tell me how you did it.

Here is my email address
(mod-edit)

I have been exploring what can and what cannot be produced color correct in what software with regards to vector files. Frankly I am shocked. The only software I can find that complies with ICC version 4 is PhotoShop CS2 except this is not a vector program.

Why am I doing this?
Well it is to do with RIPs. In years gone by when you purchased a wide format printer you purchased your RIP separately. Now when you buy a wide format printer they all apparently come with a RIP. Some are made by Chinese contract programmers, some are stripped down versions of commercial RIPs and some no one knows where they come from at all.

All are or purport to be CMYK RIPs. (Why? Why not RGB?) Some have licensed Adobe PS or JAWS PS and some have Ghost Script and some have home built parsers and interpreters. One I found — quite a popular RIP has unlicensed GhostScript (in other words uses pirated software). I have been attempting to make sure our Level Three Postscript output of SignBlazerX7 is 100% compatible and can be handled by all of these RIPs without loss or change of color.

This has been an interesting exercise. It involved producing or obtaining EPS files from every major vector program I can find. What a joke!

Here is what I was attempting.
1. From every vector program.
a. Produce an EPS vector file.
b. Produce it in RGB and CMYK.
c. Embed a ICC version 4 profile in the exported EPS file (RGB for the RGB vector image and CMYK for the CMYK image)
d. For each vector program I also attempted to make custom ICC profiles and use these.
2. Into every RIP.
a. Import each type of file.
b. See if the RIP can import an attached embedded ICC profile.
c. See what the actual difference is between an RGB and CMYK image from the same RIP when printed.
d. Also attempted to make ICC version 4 profiles and use these for each RIP.

Well without naming names none of the commonly used “major” software vector programs and none of the commonly used “major” RIPs would allow me to do all of the above. Of interest I also found that the “ICC Profiles” provided with the RIP sold with one popular sign software were not “pure” ICC profiles. (When is an ICC Profile not an ICC Profile?) When examined internally they had these tables that I can only suppose have something to do with linearization and grey scale correction. Why you would put these into an ICC profile is quite beyond me. What this means is that you cannot use any off the shelf ICC profile building software to build your own profiles. You are restricted to their ICC profile building module ($6,000.00 bucks here).

Now if you are as fussy as I am about color I would not want to be forced to use any software and certainly not 6,000 bucks worth that can only profile “ICC Profiles” for their RIP. I want to produce my own ICC complaint profiles for everything. I want to choose what Profile builder I use. You get used to one particular brand of software and you know it inside out and know exactly what & how to do subtle corrections (edit you ICC profile).
For example if you are printing work that has lots of spot colors (and you want accurate spot colors) and no gradients then you need a profile which has little smoothing. If you are printing photos and gradients with soft pastel colors and many subtle highlights I personally would use a ICC profile with heavy smoothing. Perhaps you are printing work that has a lot of deep blacks and a lot of detail in heavy shadows then a normal profile will be of little use if you wish to reveal these details. I was pleasantly surprised to find some of the major RIPs (not any packaged with wide format printers for the sign industry) allowed you to have both types of profiles and the RIP would use the correct profile for the part of the image that mattered. Example, If you specified spot colors then an ICC profile for those colors was called. If there was a gradient in the same image then a heavily smoothed profile was called. This is good. This is how it should be. The same RIP allowed you to build correction tables for color libraries you use. This is good! This is how it should be! The same RIP also has separate grey scale corrections and separate linearization tables and so on. This is good. This is how it should be!

However not is all good. In fact it is bad. Very Bad!
It appears they all say they are ICC version 4 compliant and are not at all.

To be ICC Version 4 compliant as I understand it you are able to do the following.
a. Allow users to make up and use their own ICC Profiles. (not a problem in PhotoShop CS2)
b. Import ICC Version 4 embedded profiles with EPS files.
c. Embed ICC Version 4 profiles with exported EPS files.
d. Work in both RGB and CMYK.
e. Be able to handle both RGB and CMYK profiles.

Not much to ask at all is it?

Oh, one last comment. How many points should be along an axis of a an ICC Profile? Most I examine have only 8 points. I prefer to have 32 points when I build a profile. Any one else had any experience here or can comment on their experience? (the more points the more accuracy the output color will be printed by your printer). Am I the only one out there interested enough to do these tests and comparisons?

Oh, and do not be taken in by these so called courses I see popping up “Learn Color Management over three days” for thousands of quid and or bucks. This is the same as someone running a course for thousands of bucks teaching you how to use different colors of vinyl.

[Alan Drury]

Jerry I have sent a couple of emails to you and it has moved on to people better qualified than me so look out for other emails.
Regards
Alan Drury

[David Milisock]

Ok Jerry your post is rather long and I may not have time for all the issues today but I will address all of them one at a time starting at the top.

First the short answer for me is to tell you yo go to http://www.coreldrawpro.com buy the magazine and read the last several issues. Most of your color management questions will be answered there. Changing, adding or removing ICC profiles in Corel has been dumbed down to the point that in my opinion it was made difficult. ( So easy a technician has trouble with it) What I can tell you here is that CorelDRAW color management is fully functional.

The first rule is that color management is a postscript game if you’re using PCL drivers or some false (Power RIP) that is in reality a PCL driver color management is going to be difficult. As all PCL requires that the file be converted to a ratser RGB during the creation of the PCL stream and Corel does not support RGB objects in PCL of postscript streams.

Now Corel does not support embedding ICC profiles with CMYK files, Draw or Photo-PAINT. I understand the argument here but it is really moot. Corel will convert RGB files to CMYK during export to a selected CMYK profile. To output that file using the selected color space all one needs do is send along the ICC profile and and output provider can set that ICC profile as their source CMYK vector and image color space. With that said all EPS, PS and PDF files are popstscript so the rules of postscript color management come into play. What that means is that the color space arrays and color remdering dictionaries for the file are passed along through the postscript file to the printers and or RIP. If you’re sending your properly created CMYK files to a plate or film setter any ICC profiles will be useless anyway as the file will be processed across the media linearization dot gain curve for the setter.

I use Onyx RIPs which are Jaws Rips for myink jets. All profesional graphics applications, Quark, the Adobe CS2 Suite and the CorelDRAW X3 as well as version 12 Graphics suite can have their color management set up to print and or export files that will print as close to identically as one could possibly want.

If you are not getting results of equal quality from all the professional level applications then I would from my experience suggest that you’re either using PCL or that your color management setting are incorrect.

More to come.

[David Milisock]

Ok Jerry I have time to get back at this subject. The list you want to accomplish, A, I e-mailed you an EPS from Draw, I assume it worked as you have not e-mailed me to say it failed. B, Corel does not support RGB objects in any for of postscript except as Corel published PDF in native color. Corel does support RGB images in postscript. C. Neither Adobe or Corel support embedding ICC profiles in the CS2 orX3 suite. D creating ICC profies for each vector application is technically incorrect. ICC profiles are either a color space or a device specific profile. They are to be loaded into applications to coordinate color control so application specific ICC profiles are counter intuitive.

Running out of time again. I use ICC profiles in many major workflows and with all postscript compliant graphic applications both MAC and PC when used properly they all work fine.

[David Milisock]

C. Neither Adobe or Corel support embedding ICC profiles in the CS2 orX3 suite.

THIS SHOULD READ, in EPS files.
Neither Adobe or Corel support embedding ICC profiles in EPS files in the CS2 orX3 suite.

[Alan Drury]

Jerry, I for one would like to hear your findings/comments regarding information received from David, if you are still not getting the results you expect I’m sure more help will be forthcoming from various sources
Regards
Alan D

[Jerry Bonham]

quote Alan Drury:

Jerry, I for one would like to hear your findings/comments regarding information received from David, if you are still not getting the results you expect I’m sure more help will be forthcoming from various sources
Regards
Alan D

Hi Alan, Sorry for the delay in replying. I have been away and will attend to all my emails this week.