# ROLAND Cut Studio Contour Cutting problem



## kentpyper (Feb 19, 2009)

Making my first contour cut, I picked an image for a friends birthday shirt. I can import it into Cut Studio just fine. Change the properties to bring it to 6" high, a nice fit for the transfer sheet.
Next I highlight the image, goto objects and choose IMAGE OUTLINE.
I move the sliding tab to the far right as i only want to cut out the outside of the image, with no cutting at all on the inside. and choose generate....
I then break the polylines under the option menu

HERE is the problem. When i goto highlight half the image, the outside lines are selected. This is because, after extreme magnification that there is not a solid line around my image. Why doesn't image outline put a solid line around my image.
So, i try to go and manually add lines to make it a complete loop but cant seem to figure it out.

I just would like a simple contour line. BTW, while we are here, how do you smooth out the contour lines? Mine are all very jagged.

Here is the image I am trying to print and contour cut.
Image - TinyPic - Free Image Hosting, Photo Sharing & Video Hosting

Please help me figure this out.

Thanks!!!!


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## Nick Horvath (Feb 26, 2010)

It is the image of Goofy, correct?

I imported that image into Cut Studio, and used the Image Outline function, sliding the bar all the way to the right. What it did was creat a countour around the outside of the image, but also left some detail inside of the image. This happens sometimes. After you have extracted your contour cut, you need to go into the created contour and delete all of the lines that you do not want to cut, such as the detail inside the character. You would click on them and press the delete key on your keyboard. Continue doing this until you are left with what you want to use as a cutline. 

Basically the jagged lines are a result of the JPG image. You can clean up the outline by vectorizing your image. There are programs on the internet that do this. 

Do you have Corel Draw or AI? We operate on Corel Draw, and with that you can get a much cleaner outline. If you have Corel I will tell you how to do it.


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## ayukish (Aug 18, 2005)

Give it a shot without sliding the slider all the way over. Since you're working with a lower resolution image, it's picking up all the fuzz and really distorting. By not sliding it, you will have to get rid of some of the detail inside the design but the true cut line is intact and pretty clean. 

To get rid of the inside detail, click on "object" and "break polyline". You'll then be able to select and delete portions you don't want to cut. It should only take you a minute or two.


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## Rhinestones fun (Nov 4, 2009)

If you don't have Illustrator or Corel Draw, you can manually edit the cut lines. Cutstudio is quite good at letting you change the cutlines. Sometimes I prefer it over Illy or Corel because all the anchors can be edited and the handles can be deleted or changed all in cutstudio. 

If you click on the tool underneath the arrow tool (the one with the arrow and a line with an anchor on it, you can manually edit each individual anchor. Deleting the anchor's will smooth out the cutlines. 

However it may take a bit longer than using illustrator or Corel Draw. In Illustrator all you would have to do is simplify and that's it.


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## HoleshotArtworks (Oct 26, 2009)

I have had my roland now for a year and love it and cut studio that comes with it. You have done everything right with the exception of the image. Not that the image is wrong but it's very difficult to get clean cut lines from a jpeg. 
Like Ayukish said you can go lighter on the contrast when you create outlines and remove what is not wanted. (easy way to do this for contours is to select all ctrl-A and then hold the shift key and select what you want to keep by clicking on it and then just hit the delete button and viola ther you have it.) 
Or like Nick said and convert the file into a vector so you can get smooth contour lines. The only problem with converting it into a vector is that while it will give you smooth cut lines they may not be the most accurate to the design. It maybe good enough for what you need but just keep in mind that it may need some touch up.
Lastly you can take some time to learn cut studio well (meaning edit nodes, add or free or remove handles) Once you have this mastered it can make making clean cut lines very easy. I find that I can do most all my editing in cut studio with ease. But cut studio can only take you so far since it's only meant to be a cutting software not a design software. I highly recommend get and learning illy. Cut studio has a great plug in for illy and can make design and execution that much easier and more efficiant.
With the issue with the image out line not being a complete loop is because of the poor image quality. Cut studio does it's best to get clean complete lines but can't always give us what we want. I know that there are times that we want to put an offset on the contour and can't because the cut lines aren't closed. If I am taking what your saying correctly your adding lines to the contour line but it's not closing the contour line although it looks as if it's closed. This is because of the fact that the nodes aren't actually connected but resting ontop of one another. The way to fix this to select the lines that make up the contour and right click and seclect convert to polyline and make sure that this polyline is broken. Then select the one of the nodes on the end of line that you added and right click and select snap to nearest point. Do this to all the ends of the lines you added to close the contour line and there you have it. Now you should have a complete closed contour line.
I hope that I didn't bore or confuse you with this long explination. Hopefully this helps. It takes some time to learn the software but once you have it down it's a cake walk.


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## kentpyper (Feb 19, 2009)

Thanks for all your suggestions. I have Illustrator and Corel X3, the problem is, I cant get a complete outside contour line. After I use break apart polyline, then i go to get rid of the inside lines, it deletes part of the outline line too. 
If the outline is not a complete circle or shape end to end with no breaks then, when you goto select parts of the image, the outside line goes with it too.

What I am trying to do now is either goto Corel or Illustrator, put my contour line in first, then open in Roland and see if it finds a complete line..... yes????


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## ayukish (Aug 18, 2005)

Kent,

Did you try leaving the slider where it is and not moving it all the way to the right? When i did it like that I didn't have any issues with the cut line being segmented.


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## HoleshotArtworks (Oct 26, 2009)

Sounds like you need to do a break polly line if your deleting one line and then another one that is not "attached" is being deleted also. Try that. I think that's the issue here.


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## kentpyper (Feb 19, 2009)

I made a quick video on youtube to show you what I am doing. Maybe this might help... Thank you all so much for all your great responses.
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09uZV310Dx4[/media]


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## kb24 (Feb 26, 2008)

I'm also having a problem with outlines. Every single jpeg image I outline on cut studio cones out jagged. The words, the image never come out crisp like the original picture and I've even tried raising the resolution on Photoshop before outlining. I hate having to fix each point in the outline to look like the original file, it takes forever. I have illustrator, how can I outline it on there to come out crisp on cut studio? Please help! 
Thank u


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## Nick Horvath (Feb 26, 2010)

kb24 said:


> I'm also having a problem with outlines. Every single jpeg image I outline on cut studio cones out jagged. The words, the image never come out crisp like the original picture and I've even tried raising the resolution on Photoshop before outlining. I hate having to fix each point in the outline to look like the original file, it takes forever. I have illustrator, how can I outline it on there to come out crisp on cut studio? Please help!
> Thank u


Does it cut jagged as well?


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## kb24 (Feb 26, 2008)

Nick I never bothered cutting it like that cause I figured it would look horrible so I just try to fix it the best I can before I cut. Are you saying thy even if the contour lines are jagged on the image and letters that if i still cut it could come out clean and straight?? I got the impression that it cuts EXACTLY what the image outline looks like


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## Nick Horvath (Feb 26, 2010)

Images tend to look more jagged in Cut Studio as opposed to say Corel Draw or Adobe Illustrator.

I would plot or cut the outline out to see how it turns out.


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## kb24 (Feb 26, 2008)

Personally I think the gx 24 would cut exactly the way it would look on cut studio because I've cut some fine detail on other logos and they car out perfect. The gx is so detailed when it cuts it's crazy. Lol


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## Joto Paper (Feb 12, 2007)

Here's a suggestion. Use an the original image and a shadow image (for the outline)!

Open your goofy image into photoshop and unlock background layer. Then use the wand tool to select all the white and delete. Once done, ctrl click on the layer to select only the goofy pixels and then paint it all black so it is just black shadow of goofy. Save it as a jpeg called goofy outline. Import this into cutstudio as well as the original goofy photo. The shadow one will the one you use the trace the outline and will be deleted once the outline is traced. Because you are offsetting outline, don't have to align perfectly onto original image.

Also a tip about deleting extra cutlines that you don't want that are inside the outline....
Because cutstudio is like corel draw in terms of selection. You can delete all the small cutlines inside the outline in less than 10 seconds. You draw a box on top half of the outlines (this will select all the small pieces on the top half). then click delete. Then you do the same for the bottom half. As long as you don't draw a box around the full outline, the program will not select it.


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