Epilog Color Mapping

[Dan Wilhelm]

I'm trying to engrave and cut some game pieces for a friend on 1/8" plywood. The design has raster fill, vector outlines, then vector cut shapes. I have set the file up for color mapping using blue for the rastering, green for the outlines, and red for the cutting. I have triple checked that all of the colors used are 255 for the primary color and 0's for the other two colors. I have the color mapping to raster, outline, then cut. When I run a test file of one of the game pieces, it rasters fine, then quits. I have made sure that all of the vector lines are 0.0069 inches wide, so they should be outputting as vectors. I have tried moving the vector processes up in the order, and I have deleted the unused colors from the color map. Does anybody know why it wouldn't be outputting the vectors?

[Neil Pabia]

On my epilog I have to set it to hairline to cut a vector. also, you may be using cmyk in you artwork and rgb in your settings which may cause some confusion, been there.

[Dan Wilhelm]

Thanks for the suggestions. I double checked that I'm in RGB mode in Corel, and I changed the vectors to hairline. This had no effect on the problem. I changed the two vector colors to combined mode, and the vectors didn't even raster. For some reason, it seems like the Epilog driver just doesn't recognized the lines at all. I have tried to make this same game piece without using color mapping (the outlines weren't vectored), and the Epilog driver cut the piece out just fine. I have to be screwing something up in setting up the color mapping, but I have followed all the directions in the Epilog manual.

[Joe Pelonio]

This is a pretty good video that might spark something that might help:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvnEA-Sfo1U

[Dan Wilhelm]

This is a pretty good video that might spark something that might help:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvnEA-Sfo1U

Well, if that covers all the steps, then it just confirms that I'm doing it right. Wonder what is wrong, then. I'm going to fiddle with it some more later today.

[Chris DeGerolamo]

Dumb question alert: You've got combined selected under job type and checked the check box for color mapping?

Maybe post screen shots of the dialog box to help diagnose.

[Mike Chance in Iowa]

Which version of Corel are you using? Which version of Epilog Print Driver are you using?

When you go into color mapping and set your colors, have you verified those colors are also RGB? If you Edit the color in the print preferences, color mapping section, is it set to CMYK or RGB?

[Dan Wilhelm]

I'm using X6 and the most current version of the Epilog Driver. Everything I could find on both Corel and the Driver said RGB...I couldn't find any mention of CMYK.

That being said, I've punted on this for the time being, and I've got a new problem. I started a new thread about the engraved outlines offsetting randomly from the raster engraved areas. This is incredibly frustrating.

[Roy Brewer]

Dan,

Other line widths work under different scenarios but strong rule of thumb: set you line width for Hairline. when you want vector output. RDB

[Tony Schick]

Your bit about outlines offsetting from rastered fills sparked a memory. I had this problem a while back. We had 2 Epilogs: a Zing and a Mini. Turned out I was using the wrong driver and that was the result. Using the correct driver fixed the offset problem - and probably a few other problems I didn't know I had. Could this be your problem?

[Dan Wilhelm]

I'm using the latest Mini driver from the Epilog driver site (which is 9.02). I know this because my driver screen has a check box for "send to manager" and 9.02 added compatibility for the Epilog Job Manager.

This brings up an interesting question...is the newer Epilog driver software compatible with older Minis? I have a model 8000, pre-2010 Mini 24, so it may not work with newer drivers. That being said, it does have a brand new control board in it, so it should have the latest firmware (although I have no idea what firmware that control board shipped with).

[Randy Allen]

Dan, Yes Sir, the new Epilog Laser Dashboard and the Job Manager are compatible with older Mini's.

Randy Allen
Engraving Concepts

[brentton huey]

Hey i had this happen with me also, and nothing was working the only way i got it to work was setting them as seperate layers and running all raster and everything else, THEN vector. But you cant even have the lines show or else it messes with it sometimes. The funny thing is that it only happens occasionally with once in awhile jobs.

[Jay Selway]

Can you post the file? I just had a similar problem, but in illustrator. Turned out one of my vector patterns had a very small stroke with an unmapped color.

Illustrator has a handy select similar and subsequent 'hide' feature that makes trouble shooting these things pretty easy.