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I'm interested in hand drawing art work to scan and cut into stencils for custom paint jobs on Harleys.Can I get the your opinion on which way to go.Please keep in mind that I'm totally ignorant to the lingo of this world. I've quized both Santo and Yearwood on this subject, and appreciate what they had to say...
-------------------- Stephen Michael Robinson Steve's Pinstriping Houston, Texas Posts: 71 | From: Spring, Texas USA | Registered: Aug 2001
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I have done a small amount of cutting stock designs (mine) for retail sales. I have found that the node editing labor involved in working from scans (as described in your post the other day re: vectorizing scans) is significant. Also when a curve looks great, but still has an abundance of nodes, it seems to slow down the plotter quite a bit. If you were just going to make 2 stencils for a custom job on both sides of a bike or tank, then this is not an issue. If, on the other hand, you were interested in mass producing these, then I would want to cut down on the nodes.
A great tool for creating vector cut files from your own hand drawn designs is a digitizing tablet. I got mine from Wacom, & it has a clear over-leaf that I can put an original drawing under then trace over it with the cordless digitizing pen. I work in Adobe Illustrator, & have got results where the same image when scanned would have hundreds of nodes & when drawn on the Wacom tablet it has about 5 - 10% as many nodes. I didn't time it but it cuts several times faster, as well as cleaner.
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Steve, the answer can be influenced by your software. The key to scanning is lots of contrast and crisp edges on the art. The key to vectorizing and cleanup is good software.
I generally scan into Photoshop using the black and white settings in the scanner and in Photoshop. Scan as close to full size as possible. 300 dpi is generally adequate. The goal is a crisp solid image. If the first image is not to your liking, dink with settings til you get one you like. Use Photoshop tools to clean up any trash in the image. Then save it as a bitmap.
I have had good luck with Gerber's vectorizor and node editing tools. Gerber also has a node thinning tool that works fairly well. While I am a Corel fan, I think Gerber's vectorizor outperforms Corel.
The vinyl cutter was never the bottleneck at our retail store so we did not worry about art cutting slow due to lots of nodes. However, way too many nodes can sometimes cause the plotter to act a little strange.
One fellow I know stripes One Shot onto premium white vinyl and then scans it when dry. That seems to work well for him. Vic G
-------------------- Victor Georgiou Danville, CA , USA Posts: 1746 | From: Danville, CA , USA | Registered: Dec 1998
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Hi Vic, question for you. I have not scratched the surface of Omega yet as the learning curve of all the cool things I could do with the edge has been enough to work on for the last year that I usually design in CasMate or Illustrator & just use Omega to run the job. So my question is what gerber vectorizing software or tools do you speak of? Is this by any chance something I may already have? I use Streamline & Casmate for vectorizing, but would want to know if I already owned an alternate hidden away somewhere.
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Doug, I sent you an email but it bounced back.
In GA 6, in the programs window there are a bunch of odds and ends - truetype font converter, file viewer and so on. One of them is called Vantage scan. If you call that program and open a file with it, it will trace an outline for you.
Also in GA 6, in the Shapes menu, you will find a function called thin. Used gently, this function cuts nodes way down without loss of shape accuracy. I always copy and paste back before thinning. After you thin the copy you can see how much it varies from the original. If you ruin it, you just do another paste and try again.
There's also a function in the display menu called distance around objects. This calculates perimeter distance and is very handy when trying to figure out routing time.
You may find this hard to believe, but Omega is still in the box, we have not loaded it. Omega no doubt has functions at least as good.
You mentioned CasMate. That program traces just fine also.
-------------------- Victor Georgiou Danville, CA , USA Posts: 1746 | From: Danville, CA , USA | Registered: Dec 1998
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I use a "double scan" method when producing hand drawn art work for vinyl cutting. That is... scan and cut(yes with nodes)weed,trim with exacto knife to clean up those nasty nodes. Re-scan the cleaned up vinyl. Then and only then will you be able to mess with "nodes" via your program.
hope this helps
-------------------- PKing is Pat King The Professor of SIGNOLOGY Posts: 3113 | From: Pompano Beach, FL. USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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A digital camera can be pretty useful if you don’t want to restrict your hand-painted source image to A4 size. I use a little Fuji FinePix 2600 – saves stitching bitmaps on oversize artwork. Also great if you are having trouble getting that big old truck in the scanner when a customer’s only sample of his logo is parked outside. The camera creates a bitmap and all the usual methods of tracing can be employed to convert to vector.
Arthur
-------------------- Arthur Vanson Bucks Signs Chesham, Buckinghamshire, England arthur@buckssigns.co.uk -------------------- Posts: 805 | From: Chesham, Bucks, England | Registered: Mar 2002
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It can work but nothing like an old fashioned hand cut stencil. The primary problem is appying the stencils to the curved surfaces.Take the stripes on the outline of a panel on the side of a curved tank for example,...it is virtually impossible to appy a one piece premasked stripe stencil and get it to go down flat without distortions. The process looks good on the drawing board but is damn near impossible due to the curved surface making for wrinkles in a delicate stencil application. I imagine there are some applications that could work quite well but you'll have to experiment as with the compound curves of motorcycle sheet metal you are going to have to overcome quite a few obstacles with the application. Another approach might be a simple way to transfer the design once the mask is already on the bike with a high degree of accuracy. Patterns tend to get a little sketchy when you work in small tight areas,...I always thought it would be nice if the design could be printed on some sort of pliable mask that could be stretched some way to overcome the complex curves without much distortion and or wrinkles,in the application.
-------------------- fly low...timi/NC is, Tim Barrow Barrow Art Signs Winston-Salem,NC Posts: 2224 | From: Winston-Salem,NC,USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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