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Pat Shirkey
12-04-2010, 10:14 AM
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all!!
I have a question about rastering that I have been racking my brain (what's left of it anyway) over.
When I raster my ornaments, is there a setting in Corel or through my Epilog that will allow me to raster each individual ornament rather than having my laser go back and forth all the way across - doing the 3 all at once?
I have attached a made up file to kind of show what I mean.
It seems like when I laser just one, it is a lot faster than when it does the 3 at a time.
Thank you to all who have helped people like myself with our problems.

Joe De Medeiros
12-04-2010, 10:20 AM
you can put them on different layers, and turn off the layers you don't want to print, or you can just put a white box over them to blank them out

David Fairfield
12-04-2010, 10:31 AM
Color mapping, you can use same settings but different colors. Areas will be done individually by color.

Dave

Larry Bratton
12-04-2010, 10:37 AM
Color mapping, you can use same settings but different colors. Areas will be done individually by color.

Dave
Be sure they are RGB though.

Pat Shirkey
12-04-2010, 10:38 AM
Thanks for your quick responses- just love this group
I guess what I am trying to do is to laser the first one then go to the next one without me having to send it each time. My project is actually done on chrome with Cermark with 6 across and 3 down running at 2speed and 100 power. When I run the job it takes about 50 minutes to do the 18. If I run one piece it only takes 1.3 minutes per piece so theoretically it would only take about 25 minutes to finish rather then 50. Just trying to see if I can do then faster.

Niklas Bjornestal
12-04-2010, 10:39 AM
Laserpro has an option called "Use cluster" that does what you want.
Doesnt epilog have something similar?

Scott Shepherd
12-04-2010, 10:55 AM
Listen to David, it's color mapping.

You'd make each "row" a different color. Then it will raster one color, then the next, then the next. So it'll do 3 individual rows instead of doing them all at once.

Epilog used to have the instructions on their site. Just research color mapping in your manual or on their site and you'll be good to go.

It's easy to do.

Pat Shirkey
12-04-2010, 7:48 PM
Thank you all. That is exactly what I was looking for.:)

Bruce Clumpner
12-05-2010, 2:56 AM
How does the Epilog driver prioritize vector cutting when using the color mapping feature? In this thread we're talking about a grid of objects (say a 4x4 grid) on a single sheet. Using color mapping, could you set up to only raster 1 column and then could it go back and vector them, or would the driver automatically progress to the next color in the mapping sequence, working it's way through your raster configuration and then finally vector cutting out all the shapes as it normally does?

Ed Maloney
12-05-2010, 2:05 PM
You can move the color rows up and down in the color mapping which decides the order of the rasters and vectors. There is an up and down arrow at the bottom middle of the color mapping dialog box. At least in X3 that's where it is.

Pat Shirkey
12-06-2010, 2:58 PM
I followed the instructions in the manual. I set up my corel file using the default RGB palette: red for the first column, then green, then blue. Then I sent it to print - opening up the color mapping in the Epilog properties and making sure that the colors were the same and the settings for each color were right. Sent it to the laser and IT STILL GOES ALL THE WAY ACROSS - is there something else I need to look at. Thanks to all for the help

Martin Boekers
12-06-2010, 3:18 PM
How does the Epilog driver prioritize vector cutting when using the color mapping feature? In this thread we're talking about a grid of objects (say a 4x4 grid) on a single sheet. Using color mapping, could you set up to only raster 1 column and then could it go back and vector them, or would the driver automatically progress to the next color in the mapping sequence, working it's way through your raster configuration and then finally vector cutting out all the shapes as it normally does?

Bruce, I may be wrong, but I think she may just be outlining a "place setting spot.
to hold the piece" That way she can set each piece in the proper space to be rastered.

Marty

Martin Boekers
12-06-2010, 3:22 PM
I followed the instructions in the manual. I set up my corel file using the default RGB palette: red for the first column, then green, then blue. Then I sent it to print - opening up the color mapping in the Epilog properties and making sure that the colors were the same and the settings for each color were right. Sent it to the laser and IT STILL GOES ALL THE WAY ACROSS - is there something else I need to look at. Thanks to all for the help

You can set each row up on a seperate page, but you still have to push start on the laser for each row. I'm not aware of a "page" function that
auto starts the next page. But if you're changing text for each row it still save the manual sending.

Marty

Scott Shepherd
12-06-2010, 3:30 PM
Pat, don't spend any more time on this than you have to, call Epilog and they will talk you through it. It's free and you'll be done in minutes. No need to make this hard on yourself!

David Fairfield
12-06-2010, 3:37 PM
Pat

Sounds like your document colors don't match the colors set in the driver. Sometimes the graphics software will automatically make small changes to the numeric values in the colors (this is due to RGB vs CMYK compatibility).

In Adobe, you must make sure your document color mode is set for RGB. Otherwise when you try to print or save, it will interpolate back to CMYK compatible colors, which are similar enough for printing to paper, but the laser driver won't recognize them. Corel may be similar. This happens to me and always causes a problem as you described.

To double check, after you save the document, go and check the color values by clicking on a color field. For simplicity I use red blue and green, set value for each at 255 and zero out the other two colors. You know immediately if its off.

Anyway, I know the clustering by color mapping does work, because I use this a lot to save engraving time.

HTH
Dave

Kathy Madan
12-06-2010, 3:42 PM
My older machine used to let me color map for raster, but now only allows me to color map for vector. I miss being able to color map raster images.

David Fairfield
12-06-2010, 3:53 PM
It works for both raster and vector!!

If everything else is set properly and you still have a problem, try changing one setting, like speed by 1% and see what happens.

Pat Shirkey
12-06-2010, 4:16 PM
THANK YOU DAVE!!! I changed my speed on one column from 20 to 21 and everthing works just like I thought it should. Thank you to everyone for all the help!!!! Have a GREAt CHRISTMAS!!

Ed Maloney
12-06-2010, 5:21 PM
Whoa. Changing the speed solved the problem?

Michael Kowalczyk
12-06-2010, 8:59 PM
Hey Pat,
How are you doing?
Sounds like you have your issue resolved but I am curious because on my Trotec it is usually faster when they are all done instead of individually done.

Also sometimes rotating them 90 degrees so the engraving area will be more efficient horizontally.

I did not look at your file but are the engravings really small and spaced far apart when you do all 18 at the same time?

Thanks and ...

David Fairfield
12-07-2010, 6:43 AM
Pat, I'm glad I was able to help, makes me happy! :)

Engraving mode is a side to side sweep, so engraving two things with blank space between would take the same time as the same two things with a third thing between them.

So when there is a lot of empty, unengraved space between things, it can save time to engrave these things separately using color mapping. It depends how close they are, mostly it will only make a difference if there is a significant gap.

And yes Michael is right, re-orienting the graphic is another way to potentially speed things up too. Experiment a little, you will soon get a feel for how to optimize.

Dave

Michael Hunter
12-07-2010, 11:57 AM
I have a Legend 32EX like Kathy. In the printing preferences dialogue there is a thing to set colour mapping for vectors, but not for rasters.

Am I missing something (like an upgrade), is there a cunning trick or is it simply that the EX series doesn't allow mapping for rasters?

Martin Boekers
12-07-2010, 12:12 PM
I have a Legend 32EX like Kathy. In the printing preferences dialogue there is a thing to set colour mapping for vectors, but not for rasters.

Am I missing something (like an upgrade), is there a cunning trick or is it simply that the EX series doesn't allow mapping for rasters?

I'm using Epilog's "dashboard" driver (probably an older version)
at the bottom left of the dialog box (color mapping) , I can chose raster,
vector or air assist.

You may need to update the driver .

I use Legends 36EXTs


Marty

Shawn Conklin
12-07-2010, 12:40 PM
Wanted to add some thanks for the post. This was something we have been wondering about and didn't take the time to test.

It would be nice to see a feature in the epilog driver for 'spot' raster or something. The color mapping works for individual objects but doesn't help for say ... a giant 'U' shape. Where you don't need to sweep the whole way for most of the page. ... if that makes sense.

Michael Hunter
12-07-2010, 1:03 PM
I have the latest EX/TT driver (6.01, dated October 2002! [plus a more recent update to give Vista compatibility]) and it definately does not give the option of colour mapping for rasters.

What it does have (and I've never played with this), is an option for "Computer controlled speed/power?" Yes/No.
I have always had this setting "Yes". Next time I'm engraving I will turn it "No" and see if that has any affect on the order of processing different colours (but I'm not holding my breath).

It's much too cold to do any lasering here. Yesterday the workshop got up to 10 C after 3 hours of full-blast fan-fire and radiator. Had to do it as I did not want to loose the customer, but I'm not doing it again if I can help it.

William Milligan
12-07-2010, 1:13 PM
I can't see the file right now but if they are three different designs you could select one at a time and tell the print driver to print "selection" rather than the document....you would have to send the job to the laser once for each design though so that might not be the best solution.

Chuck Stone
12-07-2010, 1:33 PM
It would be nice to see a feature in the epilog driver for 'spot' raster or something. The color mapping works for individual objects but doesn't help for say ... a giant 'U' shape. Where you don't need to sweep the whole way for most of the page. ... if that makes sense.

What if you delete half of the "U" and run it? Then the laser would only
travel the width of the line. Then for the second pass you 'undo' the delete..
. and then delete the other half of the "U" and run again

I just did that for a 12" circle 1/4" wide. Would have been hours to run,
but splitting it in half (down the middle, top to bottom) meant that it wouldn't
need to run anything in between the two sides, it simply travelled the
width of the line. (1/4" travel at the left and right edges, might be a
couple of inches at the top and bottom)

Martin Boekers
12-07-2010, 1:39 PM
I have the latest EX/TT driver (6.01, dated October 2002! [plus a more recent update to give Vista compatibility]) and it definately does not give the option of colour mapping for rasters.

What it does have (and I've never played with this), is an option for "Computer controlled speed/power?" Yes/No.
I have always had this setting "Yes". Next time I'm engraving I will turn it "No" and see if that has any affect on the order of processing different colours (but I'm not holding my breath).

It's much too cold to do any lasering here. Yesterday the workshop got up to 10 C after 3 hours of full-blast fan-fire and radiator. Had to do it as I did not want to loose the customer, but I'm not doing it again if I can help it.

Here is a screenshot of the driver;

David Fairfield
12-07-2010, 2:16 PM
A giant U shape is an ideal example of something that will engrave a lot faster if its turned 90 degrees on its side.

Dave

Michael Hunter
12-07-2010, 5:04 PM
Martin

I have a slightly similar thing for colour mapping vectors.
The dialogue box is accessed from the vector controls section and is headed "Color Maps (Vector Only)".

Looks as though the EX and TT series machines lost out.

More annoying than the colour mapping is the fact that the air-assist control is also for vectors only - there is no way at all to turn on air-assist for rastering. On occasions that would be really useful.

Pat Shirkey
12-07-2010, 9:40 PM
Hi Mike,
I am doing great!! Almost down to my last couple of sheets from you, so probably will be getting in touch with you after the first of the year.
Yes I did get my problem resolved. I ran the file using the color mapping and only had about 2 minutes total time in difference, so the whole thing was moot for this project, but I sure did learn a lot of other things about color mapping so it definately was NOT a waste of time. Thanks to all of you for the information and ideas. I always learn something new here.