Graphic designer help required

Hi,
I am buying a computerized mount cutter and it has software that you use to design mounts for cutting. I want to display some of the mounts on my website for sale.

The supplied design software is very simple to use and is based a a vector type drawing program which then sends the finished design to the machine to cut.

The on screen display of the finished design is however very low res and a simple screen capture of the design is useless for the website as it is so pixilated on any edge that is not straight.

There are also with in the software directories with dozens of pre made designs but they are the same quality (samples attached)

The only way I can see round this is to redraw them and I need help in finding how to redraw them and show the shaded edges as in the samples to show the beveled edges.

What we are drawing for example is a outside rectangle of A4 size with 90 degree cut edges and and a inside section cut out of this a4 which measures 7x5 inches. the cut edges on this aperture are however cut at 45 degrees and this I need to represent.

I have a old version of xara photo and graphic designer 7 which I am sure is adequate for this simple job and I am in Bristol UK and would also be happy to meet any one who can help in in a hands on 1:1 fashion

thanks Alistair

These should be very easy to recreate. They appear to be beveled shapes.

The yellow part is one beveled shape and the debossed center objects are a second shape.

Gary thank you the file has helped a lot, one question you said "the debossed center objects are a second shape." is debossing a tool I don't have ?

when I open your file I get a message saying some elements are missing as you have newer version?

Everything you need is in the file and does not use features on newer versions.

By deboss, I was indicating an emboss that gives the appearance of going in instead of coming forward. I created this effect by altering the Light Angle setting for the Emboss Tool to (I think I remember this correctly) to around 127 degrees. This makes the light source appear from the bottom right instead of the top left which is the default.

Do you not think Gary the software would need simple vector shapes and let the machines own software apply the bevels as it would be an instruction sent to the machine to cut at 45 degrees on the Z axis. Alistair you would need to tell us what sort of file your software accepts as there are loads of vector files & formats but the most popular in this area is DXF, postscript and SVG.

I was just replicating the image Alistair attached Peter.

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The only way I can see round this is to redraw them and I need help in finding how to redraw them and show the shaded edges as in the samples to show the beveled edges.

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Yes I saw that Gary but I don't think that Alistair understands what the machine does. The one that I have used was quite straight forward all that you did was enter the overall card size then enter the frame size, then enter mount size cut, input whither it was a back/front cut, then state if you want multiples cut, sat back and the computer did the rest. I used it mainly for packaging that I designed and it wanted .cdr (corel files) and you could copy/paste from that programme. The software came with galleries for ideas of the mounts that you could do but these were only ideas. If you wanted the first you either had to supply the file .cdr or use G-codes to tell the head that you wanted rounded corners or ovals and it also was easy to learn about 2 1/2 hours it took me to master the machine. I used it mainly for packaging from printed sheets to tell the cutter to emboss the card for fold lines and then cut out the outline so that it could be assembled to make a box for a specialised video camera for a dive company. The numbers here were so small that to send it a large print company would have been un-economical. This info only stands for the unit I used others may be different that's why I asked about the file format.

I may have misunderstood the request, which is par for the course for me, but I thought Alistair wanted something to represent how the actual cut would appear as opposed to a template to make the cut in the material.

@Gary - I read it the same way as you have.
acorn

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Originally Posted by Acorn

@Gary - I read it the same way as you have.
acorn

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I did too.

That's me not reading the post properly again, sorry Gary.

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Originally Posted by Albacore

Do you not think Gary the software would need simple vector shapes and let the machines own software apply the bevels as it would be an instruction sent to the machine to cut at 45 degrees on the Z axis. Alistair you would need to tell us what sort of file your software accepts as there are loads of vector files & formats but the most popular in this area is DXF, postscript and SVG.

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Looking at it the other way round, since it is apparently a vector based machine, if it were possible to export shapes developed in the machine they could be imported into Xara to save that part of the 'redraw' but I guess that export facility isn't available.

Don't know if this helps but I took two shapes, made them editable shapes and sliced the smaller one out.
Applying a Bevel and using the Shapes tool means it it fully editable into any shape yuo fancy.

It should be backwards compatible: Attachment 101247
I've included an overlay that can be coloured differently for indexing as you choose.

Acorn

Thank you every one and especially Garry,
we are now busy creating the images for our website which was as some of you notices what I asked about.
"I want to display some of the mounts on my website for sale."
the machine and its software is not a problem apart from the lousy image quality.