MickRalph

Inkscape 0.91 Released I have just received an announcement that the new version of Inkscape has been released. The Press Release can be seen here. The new program can be downloaded from the downloads page on www.inkscape.org. Mick

Inkscape 0.91 Released I have just received an announcement that the new version of Inkscape has been released. The Press Release can be seen here. The new program can be downloaded from the downloads page on www.inkscape.org. Mick

Looking good, Dave. Leaving the blade at setting 10 and adjusting the thickness to achieve the depth of cut is what I do. I am cutting several times at different thicknesses to achieve cutting through 20 thou, though it does seem to be hit and miss as to whether it does actually cut right through - perhaps different type of plastic cards are differing hardnesses. I think it was Ron Heggs who suggested cutting first at thickness 5 to provide a suitable guide to avoid the blade wandering on later (thicker) cuts. I then use thickness 15 or 20 and finish at thickness 33, using double cut each time. I have found that I need four or five passes at double-cut 33 to achieve a cut through, or snapping depth for 20 thou. I haven't though tried a comparative test to see whether this actually produces a better cut than straight in on thickness 33 for a particular job. Mick Edit: It is scribing all lines/colours which gives the guide for the cutting blade; the successive cuts at different thicknesses (pressures) replicates the manual cutting technique for plasticard.

I agree - my dxf files were mostly less than 500kB, although two were about 1,500kB. Jason's Class 114 files were just under 1MB. Mick

Hi David. Welcome to the club. The Silhouette is great for accurate cutting of things like windows - much better than I can achieve by hand. I am not sure why you are using line-fill colour, rather than line-stroke colour, unless you are printing, say, the side of a building or coach and then using the registration marks facility to cut out the pre-printed side. I find that if I use a fill-colour it gets in the way of seeing the lines I am creating. Generally, I think that people just create a drawing with lines of .1mm thickness, coloured as needed for cutting or scoring and then cut from this drawing. Your procedure to get the file into Studio for cutting seems very complicated. I use Inkscape and have Studio Designer Edition, so I create the drawing and save it as SVG and DE opens the file with its layers. However, DE will only cut all lines in a layer (whether the file is created in Inkscape or in Studio itself). To cut by line colour, it is necessary to open the file in DE and then delete all layers except one to cut and then cut the lines in that layer by colour. If you try to cut by colour without deleting the layers, all lines of a colour are cut on all layers. Can you create the file in DeltaCAD and save it as an svg file? If so, you can then import it into DE and follow the procedure above of deleting all but one layer in turn. Before buying DE, I had to create the svg file in Inkscape and then delete all layers but the one I wanted to cut and save the file as aq DXF file. However, I have just found that while DE will open SVG files from Inkscape, if I save the file as a DXF file and open it in DE, all the layers are conflated into a single layer, which doesn't help. For your problem of sizing the dxf file when opened in Studio, there is an section in the "Preferences" (Edit menu) on how to deal with importing DXF files. You could try experimenting here - I found I had to change it to "centred". Mick

One will be complete as per the kit, but the other will have a fair bit of scratchbuilding, though many parts can be made using the kit parts as templates. Seemed a good way to get into scratchbuilding. Mick

That's an awful lots of lines. What are you creating? The most I have done so far is about 1,000 cutting lines. Jason's Class 114 sides, for which he posted the svg file in his Wainfleet and Havenhouse thread (post 877 on page 36), had 6,700. Do you want to send me a copy of the file so that I can see whether I can open it in Studio Designer Edition and Inkscape? I don't know whether you can attach a file to a PM, but if you send me a PM I will send you my email address. Mick

I haven't seen any references to a maximum file size. Have you had a problem in loading a particular file - if, what size is it? To ian_g_griffiths - I haven't tried such an experiment and don't have a record of who has supplied my various thicknesses of plasticard. Mick

Sorry, I misread the drawing - I assumed we were looking from the roadway, but now see that the it is the other side of the nearside fence. Mick

Hi Mike. Surely there is a second gate on the nearside post, but opened the other way? The gates do, though, look rather long to span one line each. Happy New Modelling Year. Mick

The beta version of Inkscape 0.91 is now available for download, but I haven't yet tried it. I couldn't see any relevant items in the "new features" section of the website.

In post 887 above, I indicated that it seems that that Studio Designer Edition (DE) can only cut by layers or by colour and this seems to be the case. While DE will open an Inkscape SVG file, if selecting to cut by layers, it will cut all the lines in the selected layer, which is no help if some of them are intended to be scored only. Alternatively, if selecting to cut by line colour, all lines of a selected colour will be cut on all layers. The solution is load the completed SVG file into DE and then to delete all but one layer and then to cut that layer by line colour, allowing different parameters to be set for the different colours. Making sure not to save the .studio file, you can then reload the SVG file and delete layers leaving only another one which needs cutting and then repeat the cutting by line colour. Thus, DE does enable cutting files without the need to convert the SVG file to the DXF format for loading into Studio, with the issues that this can bring. I emailed Silhouette support to check that my assessment was correct and to ask whether they have plans to enable cutting by line colour after selecting a layer, but only received the response that my suggestion (!) had been passed to the software department to consider. BTW a new update of the Studio software was posted on the Silhouette website on 5th January, but the website doesn't indicate what enhancements have been made to the program. I would still prefer to use the CutWizard plugin for Inkscape, if I could persuade the German software writers to provide for cutting by line colour as well as by line fill. I am intending to have another go at this, but don't hold out much hope. Mick

I don't have a thread yet, as I don't have much to show and progress is very slow. I have been slowly building some coaches, though nothing is really completed yet and certainly not painted. I have several Roxey coach and some Finney loco kits to build - only the M7 has been started and I am building two versions from the single kit. I enjoy plasticard scratchbuilding and have a Silhouette Portrait cutting machine to help with cutting the panelling, but haven't yet used it for LSWR coaches. Some examples of the kits which the cutter has produced for the Tramways of the Correze (TC) are shown in the cutter thread here and here. I am currently using the cutter for making the roof framing for the engine shed and the sides, springs and axleboxes for the bogie coaches of the TC. The technique can be seen in this thread, but I am using Bill Beford sprung bogies. I am hoping that I will be able to get the chassis for the Clay Co. locos from Brian Madge. I have made the individual sections for the main Torrington trestle viaduct, but have yet to put them together. The only thing which I have really completed is a travelling crane, which is actually an LBSCR one, but it was the only one for which I could find a photo - I was lucky enough to win a scratchbuilding prize at Scaleforum a couple of years ago. For the TC, I am modelling this in 1:55 scale using P4 track, as I have the various gauges, etc. It does mean, though, that almost everything has to be scratchbuilt, or adapted from something else. Being narrow gauge, they are not much bigger than 4mm scale vehicles. Here are a couple of photos of progress so far. Perhaps to avoid hijacking your thread, I should start my own. Mick

Thanks Dave. I had forgotten this article. It will be useful when I get round to building a Black Motor for my projected layout, which is also Torrington, in P4 and set in about 1910, complete with the North Devon Clay 3-foot gauge line. I am (slowly) building stock for it while awaiting space for a layout, but taking precedence at the moment is stock and buildings for a layout/dioramas on the metre-gauge Tramways of the Correze lines in France. Mick

The kit looks as if it is going together very well. The photo you put up at the beginning of the build shows the superheated version, which is after my period - does the kit build into the original version? The PDK website gives no indication. Mick

I am not yet certain that Studio Designer Edition is the way to go. I am not sure whether you can turn off cutting or scoring for different colours within a layer, or whether, having selected "cut by layers" all colours in a selected layer are cut sequentially (or indeed jumbled up together in the most economical cutting order). Conversely, I think that when "cutting by colour", all lines of that colour in all layers may be cut together, which would be a disaster. The manual is not clear, so that I think that I will have to ask Silhouette Support for guidance. If this is the case, it would be necessay to delete created separate svg files for each layer, thus somewhat defeating the object. If only CutWizard (www.hobbyplotter.de) would cut by "line colour" rather than by "line fill colour" it would do all we need when creating files in Inkscape or CorelDraw. They said that they have no plans to add this functionality, but perhaps if enough of us emailed to ask for it ......? Mick

I have bought the Studio 3 Designer Edition (which costs £30 from Yolo). So far, I have only tried a couple of tests and I have yet to try cutting a big job, such as a coach side; I will report back when I do. Mick

Dave I thought it surprising that CorelDraw X7 would not support dxf format files. When I looked at Corel support at this link, it says under "File Formats" and then "Supported file formats" that you can export in AutoCAD dxf format. I downloaded the trial version of CorelDraw X7, drew a couple of simple shapes and exported the drawing as a dxf file - this opened perfectly in Inkscape and in Studio.

Good news. If you want some inspiration of what can be done (in card generally, rather than in plasticard), see the pictures in this forum (which has already been mentioned earlier in this thread). It is a very long thread in French, but worth looking at the pictures - I now have some ideas for my French metre gauge railway. Trouble is, I spend too long drooling over other people's work and not enough time making things for my own railway. Mick

Dave, I think the problem may be in the importing into Studio. Go to "Edit>Edit Preferences>Import Options" and you will find a section "When Importing DXF" - this needs to be set as "As is" or "centred". However, as the other option is "Fit to Page", I would have expected there to be an increase in size. I am exporting from Inkscape and found that if I use "As is", then the imported drawing is off the page, but "Centred" works OK. There are a three ways to cut straight from Draw without exporting the file as a DXF file. Firstly, Studio Designer Edition will read SGF files and deals with layers (but of course SVG is not the native format for Draw, so you would have to save it in SVG format anyway) - I have bought Designer Edition, but haven't yet cut much with it, although first impressions are good. Secondly, Silhouette Connect (again a paid-for program) is a plug-in for Draw X4 or higher and will cut direct from Draw without needing to open Studio at all. A similar program as a plug-in for Draw X3 and higher is CutWizard from a German company (see here) - this has a 14-day trial version. I have only a very old copy of Draw 9, so that I haven't been able to try this program for Draw, but I was very impressed with it for Inkscape, EXCEPT that it cuts by line-fill colour rather than by line-stroke colour and they have no plans to provide the latter option - this sadly makes it not worthwhile from Inkscape. I hope that you sort out the sizing issue. Regards Mick

Of course, the 12" x 24" mat only fits the Cameo, not the Portrait, though I guess it could be cut down in width to fit the latter; I have only used the standard size with my Portrait. I have used the 60 degree replacement blades in the CB09 holder (from this seller), though I haven't carried out any detail tests for comparison. Mick

Yes, different colours can be used for different cuts/scores. I use green and olive green for lines which are to be scored (eg doors on coach sides, or matchboarding on carriages or planking on buildings) and other colours for lines to be cut. When the cutter changes direction, the blade follows a small radius curve, so that a right-angled corner is not a sharp change of direction. Thus some people use different colours for horizontal and vertical lines, so that the blade is lifted from the sheet as it changes direction. This is done (eg on a rectangle) by using "Path>Object to Path"; selecting the "Edit Path by Nodes" tool; Control-A to select all the nodes; "Break Path at Selected Nodes" (4th button from the left on the Nodes toolbar); "Path>Break Apart". This turns the rectangle into four lines, which can be coloured as needed. Then, in Studio it is possible to select or deselect the various colours for different cutting options. Remember not to unload the material between cuts. I have created several different media types in Studio - Plasticard Score; Plasticard 1st Cut; Plasticard 2nd Cut; Plasticard 3rd Cut, and these have different thickness and blade settings. Speed is always 1 and the blade depth is set at 10. Score is at thickness 15 and uses a diamond dresser as a scriber in the old style pen-holder; 1st Cut uses thickness 5; 2nd Cut is at thickness 20 and 3rd cut is at thickness 33. All lines are selected for scribing, but the green lines are deselected for the cuts. I find that 1st Cut and 2nd Cut are sufficient to go through 10thou plasticard, but for 20th and 30 thou (I haven't managed to get 40 thou into the machine, but Jon Hall was cutting this size at Tolworth on Saturday) I set the number of cuts to 8. Even then, the openings have to be snapped as they are not cut right through. Mick

Is that so that you can have lunch while it is working? Most of us use a book of the right size each side. Even with these, it is best to use masking tape to secure the plasticard sheet to the backing sheet to prevent any movement of the plasticard, which will spoil the cutting - guess how I know. Good luck with your projects; I look forward to seeing them. Mick

Hello Sleeper, I'm confused as to which file format you have used. I can't find "PDX" as a graphics format and it is not in the Inkscape. If it was PDF, then Inkscape will export this, but the Studio manual says that only the Designer edition will open pdf files, for tracing an image. Otherwise, I can't help, as I haven't had this problem, but I would start by checking the "cut settings" page to check that everything is set to cut (eg is it set to cut by line colour and are all the colours ticked - they are in the "Cut Conditions" > "Advanced" setting). I hope you sort it out. I was at Tolworth Showtrain today and Jon Hall had an interested crowd around his demo of the Portrait cutter. Regards Mick

Hi Dave, Yes, there is an awful lot of information to assimilate from the very helpful posts in the fora. The Silhouette Studio program comes with the machine - you will probably need to go to www.silhouetteamerica.com to download the latest version of Studio (v3). This will import DXF files, which Inkscape can export. However, if you have used layers, you will need to export each layer separately (ie delete each layer except the one you need to cut). In doing the export, you need to make sure that DWPolyline option is not selected. It is also best to convert all objects to paths. You may need to check that the drawing is the right size in Studio and to move it to a more convenient place on the Studio workspace. You will find that Studio has good control over the cutting process. It is possible to cut direct from Inkscape, but you lose a lot of control - you need to install the printer driver which you can find on the disk which comes with the machine or can be downloaded from the Silhouette website. The driver is not installed by default, as it is not needed for cutting from the Studio program. You may have seen that you can upgrade Studio to Designer Edition for about £25-30, but no-one seems to have done so. I will buy it on Monday, as it does have support for SVG files and layers, so it should be able to open our Inkscape files directly for cutting. I will report on the outcome in due course. I am out for the afternoon and evening, but will try to post tomorrow some links to relevant posts in the various threads to give some useful tips and other tools you might buy to go with the machine. Mick