6 Replies Latest reply: Mar 24, 2011 3:17 AM by simpson246 RSS

    Help regarding layering so that different colours of vinyl can be cut on plotter and attached

    simpson246 Community Member

      hi all i have a few questions regarding adobe illustrator.

       

      I'm looking to create designs (of multiple colours) cut out on a plotter and appyly so the design is of different colours.

       

      I'm guessing this will be done through layering as ill want to cut out 1 piece in say black, another in red and last in yellow of vinyl.

       

      Then attach all as designed so that i have a layered design that isnt one plain colour.

       

      Please help

       

      Many thanks

       

      kind regards,

       

      Ryan

        • 1. Re: Help regarding layering so that different colours of vinyl can be cut on plotter and attached
          Monika Gause CommunityMVP

          You should definitely check with  the person who will cut the vinyl and apply it to your (car or shop window or whatever). Depending on how exactly the design looks you would have to decide how to build it - totally overlapping or just partially (also up and down and front an back of a car are cometimes treated differently when overlapping the vinyl). For the adjustment of colors when adhering you can include marks that will also be cut.

           

          So take your design to the service bureau and talk to them.

          • 2. Re: Help regarding layering so that different colours of vinyl can be cut on plotter and attached
            [scott] CommunityMVP

            I don't see any question there. What's your question?

            • 3. Re: Help regarding layering so that different colours of vinyl can be cut on plotter and attached
              Mike Gondek2 Community Member

              You will want to make 4 files

               

              Vinyl - MASTER (do all you work on this file)

              Vinyl - Black

              Vinyl- Red

              Vinyl - Yellow

               

              In your master file make 3 layers, call them Black, Red, Yellow. When you are done designing, just make 3 more copues of the master file, and turn off all but 1 layer. Name the file the appropriate color.

               

              Do not knock out the colors that overlap. So if you want red type with a black stroke - you will stroke and fill your type black for the black plate. Teh red comes on top with just the fill.

              • 5. Re: Help regarding layering so that different colours of vinyl can be cut on plotter and attached
                JETalmage Community Member

                Are you doing the cutting, or are you just doing the design and delivering it to someone else to cut?

                If you are doing it, what cutter are you using, and what software to drive it?

                 

                There should be no need for separate files per color. Most cutting software supports sending one color at a time to the cutter.

                 

                Cutters only cut along paths. So applying strokes to paths (or text) is pointless unless you outline the strokes (thereby making their visible edges paths).

                 

                Overprinting (i.e.; knockout) has no bearing on cutting paths. Again, cutters just follow paths. If the path is there, it is going to be followed by the cutter. If you have a red path inside or overlapping a black path, and you're cutting the black, the cutter isn't going to stop when it "encounters" the red. It's just a path. If you send the black paths to the cutter, the cutter is going to follow the black paths.

                 

                People try to overcomplicate this. The cutter just follows paths, just as you would follow a pencil line with with an Exacto knife. The cutter doesn't know what color vinyl is loaded. The cutter is simply going to cut along whatever paths are sent to it by the cutting software that drives it. If the software sends the yellow paths to the cutter, the cutter is going to follow those paths, regardless of whether in the design the yellow paths intersect other paths.

                 

                Again, most common cutting software detects the number of path colors used in the design and provides the option to send paths of a given color to the cutter.

                 

                You open the design in the cutting software.

                You load yellow vinyl.

                You tell the cutting software to cut the yellow paths.

                You load red vinyl.

                You tell the cutting software to cut the red paths.

                And so on.

                 

                If you've got adjacent or overlapping separate paths of a single color that merely look continuous in the design, the cutter is again just going to follow the paths. So you'll get extra cuts that you don't want if you expect the cutting results to replicate the way the design merely looks. In such cases, you need to union the same-colored paths so that there are no unwanted cross-cuts in a single color.

                 

                The only reason to use separate per-color layers, artboards, or files is to economize on the vinyl usage. For example, imagine a design that has only a few red paths scattered around it. If you just open that design and send the red paths to the cutter, it's going to cut all those red paths in proper position relative to each other--just like they are in the design. That's going to waste alot of vinyl. So it's a common practice to move paths of a given color to another artboard in order to "bunch them up" closer together to minimize vinyl usage. Doing that trades additional work in the assembly process for saved vinyl. Some cutting software can auto-arrange paths for that; most commonly, they don't.

                 

                JET

                • 6. Re: Help regarding layering so that different colours of vinyl can be cut on plotter and attached
                  simpson246 Community Member

                  thank you for all your help, esp the last few posts

                   

                  much appreciated indeed