What are “closed loops” and what does “loop direction” mean?
It is very important in the production of signs made with vinyl film that each continuous sequence of vectors (each loop) start and end in the exact same place – otherwise the background (scrap) material cannot be readily separated from the design. For example, a capital letter B has three loops – two small inner loops and one large outer loop – each of which must be “closed loops”. In the Wizard, not only must all the loops be closed, but each loop must follow a specific direction as the loop is created. For example, for the capital letter B, the outer loop must be clockwise and both of the inner loops must be counterclockwise. With the Show Loop Dir in the View menu checked, the loops directions are indicated by the colors of the loops – clockwise loops are displayed in blue and counterclockwise loops are displayed in red. In addition, certain manufacturing operations (e.g. routing, lasercutting, and waterjet cutting) require that the inner loops must be drawn before the outer loops. Any loops that are not closed (which by definition of a loop are neither clockwise or counterclockwise) are displayed in black.
The reason the directions of the loops are important is that several important manufacturing processes (e.g. outlining, welding, shadows & neon tube layouts) require the loop directions and the sequence in which the loops are created to be as indicated above for the process to work as intended. For data imported from another program or for bitmap images that are vectorized in the Wizard, the direction and the sequence in which all loops are drawn for any Graphic or line of text can be made to conform to these rules by selecting the Graphic or line of text and clicking on Reorder Loops in the Edit menu.
Back to top
What is a screen dump, how is it used and how do I create one?
A screen dump allows you to print out any dialog box in any Windows program. In case of a disk crash or other serious computer problem, it is recommended that a record of your Wizard default settings and your plotter driver settings be created using a screen dump. For make a screen dump of your plotter driver settings go to Plot Manager/Device/Setup/Advanced. With the cursor anywhere in the dialog box, press the Alt and Print Screen keys at the same time. This will send the image of the dialog box to the Windows Clipboard. Then open any word processor (e.g. MS Word), paste from the Clipboard and the dialog box should appear on the screen. Print it and keep it in a safe place in case you need to reconstruct your plotter driver.
Back to top
