Contour Cutting using Wasatch SoftRIP - DG Tech

Contour Cutting using
Wasatch SoftRIP
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Wasatch SoftRip & contour cutting
The contour cutting feature is an add-on for the Wasatch SoftRIP application. To use the contour cutting
feature, follow these steps.
1. Configure Wasatch SoftRIP so it will contour cut on a Summa Cutter with the OPOS system.
2. Prepare your file by creating a cut path (a specialized spot color) in a vector-based drawing program
such as Adobe® Illustrator®, Coreldraw®, Macromedia® FreeHand®, …
3. Cut the image using a Summa vinyl cutter
Configuring Wasatch SoftRIP
Installing a cutter with OPOS
First select a free unit, this will create a pop-up where you will need to select your model:
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Under “Printer Model” select “Summa” and then SummaSign Pro (as this is the only supported machine it
will be used for SummaSign, SummaCut and S Class machines).
Next you need to configure a few options.
1. Imaging Configuration, this allows you to set up some device specific parameters as Baud rate (9600
Baud is default), cutting speed and knife pressure.
2. Selects the port with which you communicate to your cutting device.
3. Set the width of the Media used in the cutter.
4. When this option is selected, the specialized spot color will be ripped as being a cut path instead of a
colour
5. Adds an outline cut around your job, same as a weeding frame.
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You cutter has now been configured, next up we need to configure the printer you are using to print out
the OPOS markers along with your job.
Configuring your printer for OPOS
Go to the setup screen of the printer you want to configure. Do this by first selecting the printer and then
select “Setup” from the “Print” pull-down menu.
You will be transported to the same screen as you had when installing a printer/cutter. Here make sure
that the “Process Cutting Paths” has been selected in the “Cutting Options”. When enabling “Cutting
Registration Marks” you will get a drop down menu asking which cutting mark needs to be printed, select
SummaSign Pro here (when selecting a different device, different optical registration marks will be
printed making it impossible to perform OPOS on your job).
When you have selected which cutting registration mark you want to use, the program will prompt you to
enter the interval to be used for these marks.
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!! NOTE !!
This feature only works with layouts and with the print spooler, never with
immediate print of a single page. Otherwise the program will only put
markers at the extents of the job.
This interval sets the maximum distance between the first and second marker along the X-axis. Once the
job surpasses this, the RIP will add one more marker. The default setting is 24 or 24 inch (600 mm), for
a higher accuracy I suggest to put this value at 10 (10 inch or 254 mm). The lower the value the more
registration marks are printed, the higher the accuracy. However the more markers you add, the longer
it will take to read them all.
You system has now been configured for Contour Cutting.
Creating a contour cutting file
The first step in the Contour Cut process is to prepare your file for contour cutting. To prepare your file,
first you must define the cut path in a vector-based drawing program such as Adobe Illustrator or
CorelDraw. The cut path may be as simple or complex, as you desire – it can range from a circle around
a bitmap image or an outline of script text.
Once you create the cut path, you must assign a spot colour to it. This spot colour (specifically the name,
not the colour) is the most important part of preparing the file as it allows the cutter software to
determine where the cutter should cut the image.
The name you assign to this spot colour must have a unique name, which matches the name assigned in
the RIP. There are 2 names possible for the cut path spot colour: CutContour, CutPath (this is case
sensitive).
When the RIP processes and prints the file, the path with this named spot colour will not be printed with
the rest of the image. The RIP processes the spot colour as a cut path and creates a separate cut script
file for your cutting device.
Contour Cutting Workflow
First of all we need to create a contour cutting job file.
In CorelDraw, create your object followed by an outline with the specific Spot color (in the example we
will use CutContour).
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Export this to a PostScript file (to maintain the vector information of the cutting path). Next open the file
in SoftRip, you will see a blue dotted line appearing where the cut path should be (if you have configured
SoftRip to show an animated cut path, the line will scroll clockwise), this is a first indication that there is
nothing wrong with your file.
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Next select Rip only from the Print drop-down menu, this will put the file in the RIP queue. Now go to the
Queue by selecting Print – Queue, you will get following screen:
1. This is the RIP Queue, which represents all the files being ripped and that are ripped
2. This is the Print Queue, which represents all the files being or that are printed.
To continue press the button “Layout” (3) this will transport you to the layout screen, where you need to
select how many copies, and set the layout of the to be printed job. Once your file has been printed and
you have load the job in your cutter, press the “Cut button” (4) this will transport you to the Cutting
queue.
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Highlight the job you want to cut, and press the right mouse button. Which will bring you to the cutting
queue setup.
Select the amount of copies you want to cut and press “OK”. In the cutting Queue, press again OK and
the job will be contour cut.
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