a stroke which shows a line at 0 points ? 1

[richiepop]

hi
I work in the graphics industry and have done for many years. I have a problem I cant rectify and it is driving me to distraction. Can anyone help? ...

The scenario .... I design an item lets say an oval coaster in illustrator CS. I set that coaster up 10 times as a composite file on a particular sized sheet. I produce seperated films from a rip and then My printers print the job (10up as per the films).Next I need to cut out the 10up oval shaped coasters on our Routing machine. (the printed sheets are fed into the router and it automatically cuts the printed material to the shapes reqd following a cutting trace. I have a cutting trace file that I send to the Routing machines software which I produced at the same time as I designed the 10up file in illus. so that it knows exactly where to cut the printed stock. Now comes the maddening part. The software wont recognise the cut line info because it is a stroked line. ie it is in fact 2 lines either side of a path. If I take the file into Flexisign software and remove one of the strokes and then convert back to illustrator and send that file to the router software it recognises it straight away. My question is .... how can I create a stroked line that is 0 points but still shows as a solid line? Or how do I get rid of one of the stroked lines just leaving one? The thing is when the file has been changed in Flexisign and then converted back to illustrator I see a solid line and the stroke box says 0 points thickness !!!! ??? How do I do this in illus without having to use Flexisign? ... Any thoughts please

regards
Dave

 

[nefaste]

I don't have all your experience and might say something stupid... but have you tried turning your cut path into guides ?

 

[itchybug]

Dave:

Without trying this myself first (OMG, risky business!), I'd suggest something like:

1. Copy your original (stroked) lines;
2. Make the layer the lines are on a TEMPLATE or non-printing layer;
3. Paste-in-Front (Ctrl-F) on a NEW layer;
4. Remove strokes. The template should still have the visible strokes, and the regular layer will have exact copies of those paths without strokes.

Let me know if this basic idea works, then we can spend a litte more time fleshing it out.

Also, as you set it up 10 times, do you do this manually or by using the Transform EFFECT (not regular Transform from the Object menu), that way you can update "live" from one coaster to all ten.

HTH

Bert

http://www.itchybug.com

 

[itchybug]

BTW double-click on the template layer will bring up its options, so you can set "dim images" to 100%.

http://www.itchybug.com

 

[carlow]

hi richiepop,

I think it has something to do with recognizing the vector as a stroke by the cutting machine. So what I would try is make a shape of the stroke.

Draw your forms and give them a stroke, afterwards with the shape still selected go to menu Object > Path > Outline path.

Now the stroke has become a shape, a plotter machine recognizes a shape not a stroke. Fill the new path with zero and I think it will work.

I am not totally shure, couldn't try it myself.

hope it helps
carlow