Introduction to Contour Cut

Introduction to Contour Cut

In ErgoSoft RIPs, contour cut integrates seamlessly into the production workflow. For Jobs intended to be Cut, the RIP automatically constrains Job space to the width of the cutter to make sure the Job fits. It  reserves space around the images and adds CutMarks to be read by the cut device automatically without requiring any manual positioning from the user. After such a Job is printed, it is automatically passed from the PrintQueue to the CutQueue to be sent out to the cutter. After completing the cut process, the Job is passed back to the PrintQueues Done segment.

Many of the Tools used in Ergosoft RIPs cut workflow such as Cut Environments and CutQueues mirror those used in the printing workflow, so if you are already familiar with how to configure your device and print in Ergosoft, cutting will be instantly familiar to you.

Cut Environments in ErgoSoft RIPs can be thought of as a package of settings relating to a specific cutter and material. Cut Environments are sometimes referred to and thought of as Cutter Drivers, but that is only one of their functions. Besides the basic driver architecture, they also contain several other settings and aspects that make them a very versatile solution for managing different cutter / material combinations as well as the port configuration so the RIP can communicate with the cutter and send Data.

CutQueues act as a sort of waiting Queue where jobs are stored before they are sent to the cutter. The CutQueue is a powerful tool that allows you to manage Jobs waiting for cut, survey workload on a machine, manage cut priority, ensure the cutter is ready,  and so on.

CutQueues also contain the port that is used to communicate with the printer, CutQueue behavior, Spool folders for temporary data and Printer Pools.

While older ErgoSoft RIP versions allowed printing and cutting «directly» without using a PrintQueue or CutQueue, in ErgoSoft RIP 16 every machine connection in the ErgoSoft RIP always requires a PrintQueue or CutQueue to connect to the machine (With the exception of some specific cut devices).

We’ll look at Cut Environments and CutQueues in the Cut Environments article.

The configuration of what to cut is done in the cut dialog through the Contour Cut settings. These identify which lines in the file to cut, which tools of the cutter to use, etc. We’ll look specifically on how to configure this in the Cutting Jobs section.

You can also find a interesting videos on using cut contour in Ergosoft in our Contour Cut Playlist on Youtube

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