Complete Pepakura Viewer for CraftROBO guide/FAQ

[xvang24]

Ok so out of frustration and time, I exported the .dxf file into Silhouette Studios and manually removed all the pages/parts that I didn't want.
Once this is done, you'll be able to navigate and make changes without your Silhouette Studio freezing up. What you're basically doing is reducing the size of the file.

One thing I'm still confused about is that when you import the .dxf file, how do you select all the lines by group color. When I do a ctrl+A, and Ungroup, I can only select each individual line rather than by color group.

Considering this, the Cameo works.

 

[seregon]

gap between printing and cutting

Good evening I have a little problem with either the software "Craftrobo" or Pepakura for Craftrobo.
I have a permanent gap between printing and cutting which is annoying to assemble.

Do you have this problem?

thank you for your answers

yann

 

[xvang24]

Good evening I have a little problem with either the software "Craftrobo" or Pepakura for Craftrobo.
I have a permanent gap between printing and cutting which is annoying to assemble.

Do you have this problem?

thank you for your answers

yann

Are you using the Silouette SD? Or Silouette Cameo?
Can you provide a screenshot of the gap you're referring to?

 

[seregon]

Hi xvang24, thanks for your help.

I'm french and in my country this is craftrobo c330 as silhouette SD.

I can't provide you a photo but there is 3-5mm approximatly between print and cutting.

thanks in advance for your help.

 

[xvang24]

Hi Sergon,

You may want to refer back to the original video found at the beginning of this thread.

As for the Cameo Update, here's what I've found out...

I was toying with my setting cuz my print images and my cut images were slightly off. I had my SD Card lying on the table and thought I give it a shot with the SD Option. I've found that after printing my images and then saving my images via SD, with using the SD Option directly on the Cameo, my alignment were right on!

Don't ask me why, but direct printing from within Silhouette Studios, I could never align it right.

 

[seregon]

Thanks xvang24, i will test with the SD slot reader to print my images.

 

[seregon]

excuse me xvang24, i don't know how to cut my pepakura files with the SD card because it's "pepakura for craftrobo" that give the information to the craftrobo. I can't save the project as image.

Can you say me how you make to cut from the SD card pepakura project ?

Thanks a lot for your help.

 

[xvang24]

excuse me xvang24, i don't know how to cut my pepakura files with the SD card because it's "pepakura for craftrobo" that give the information to the craftrobo. I can't save the project as image.

Can you say me how you make to cut from the SD card pepakura project ?

Thanks a lot for your help.

Seregon, within the Silhouette Studios, to the right of the "Save" button on the top-left corner, there is an SD card icon. Select it and it'll save the file as an .SDK file.

I hope this helped.

 

[darkside 501st]

I have a work around for using the cameo to print/cut pep files, so if you bought one assuming it would work with Pepakura Viewer for CraftRobo don't fret. It requires a little more work than the sd did, but you don't need to buy the license for Pepakura Viewer for CraftRobo. I'll put up a guide detailing the steps shortly.


Here's my guide, haven't gotten my cameo in just yet but I'm 98% sure this will work.

This was a helpful guide and the process works fairly well with the cameo in theory and sometimes in practice. I would like to add you can assign different cutting properties to each color group if you like so there is no need to delete the mountain and valley lines before cutting. You can tell the cameo to ignore these lines or to cut them in a perforated pattern. From what I know, you can not, however, tell the cameo to score the line; as in cut it with less pressure than the other cut lines. I will look into this but even if it were possible you would only want to do this on the mountain fold lines. To score the valley fold lines you would have to invert the picture and score the back of the cardstock.

So as I mentioned, this process works 'in theory'... to explain... there is an inherent problem with the DXF file format being that it is transparent. What I mean by this is that some of the tabs are overlapping and you can see the lines for the tabs that are supposed to be behind other tabs or panels of the pepakura model. So if you were to just cut the lines as they appear then you would end up cutting off the parts that were overlapping and even cutting out chunks of the model. I am not sure if this is clear or not so I included a couple pics of what I mean. The only way I know of to over come this is to take each tab that is overlapping and edit it (change it's shape) in Silhouette Studio so that they do not overlap the model panels or other tabs. A very time consuming process.



I was wondering if anyone else had any other suggestions to overcome this drawback. Is there a way, for example, to make the DXF file opaque so that the lines that are supposed to be behind panels and other tabs will not show up?

I have also been in touch with Yotsuya from Tama Software User Support and I have sent him an email with the following suggestions:

I was hoping you might consider making some minor improvements to your Pepakura Designer program to make this process easier on everyone who has to use the cameo via importing the DXF format. I have a couple of suggestions which I think would streamline the process and save a great deal of time.

First, I noticed that when exporting as a BMP format there is another option that says 'BMP file per sheet'. I think that this would be extremely helpful if this option were also available for the DXF format. So instead of exporting one giant DXF file it would automatically separate the pages and create one DXF file per page. This would save us the extra time of having to relocate the parts and save each page on our own and it would prevent the computer freezing issue that some people are having when opening larger pepakura designs.

Second, I would like to address the overlapping tabs issue. I am not sure if this is possible or what you might have to do to make this work but it would be great if the DXF file would contain the shapes of the tabs as they appear on the Pepakura Designer display. So if part of a tab were covered by a panel of the model or if you have overlapping tabs then the DXF file would reflect this by changing the shape of that 'covered' tab to the shape of only the part of the tab that is visible. One other approach I can think of is that when viewing the model in Pepakura Designer the model is not transparent and the tabs are 'behind' the panels and other overlapping tabs. If there were some way of making the DXF file opaque instead of transparent then Silhouette Studio would only see the lines that need to be cut and not the lines that are supposed to be behind other panels/tabs. As I said before, I don't know if this is possible or not... I am not that familiar with DXF files.

Anyways, those are the two major time consuming issues for use with the new Cameo cutting machine. Maybe you can think of a different solution to these issues but I wanted to bring this to your attention and hopefully you will help, if you can, to support all the pepakura fans out here. Thank you for your consideration.​

Maybe there can be some improvements made to the process that will make it more user-friendly and time-saving. I would like to know if anyone else has any other suggestions and/or comments about this.

 

[Syko]

So, I finally got the controller to work... except it keeps popping up with a communication error or a USB port in use error... Does anyone have any ideas as to 1) why and or 2) how to fix this? I have tried uninstalling and removing anything associated with Graphtec or CraftROBO, except the Pep Viewer, and reinstalling to no avail. I am completely at a loss. The cable works, I can use Silhouette Suite but for some reason the CraftROBO Controller doesn't to talk to the cutter.

 

[darkside 501st]

I heard back from Tamasoft and he informed me that the overlapping tabs issue was fixed on their last revision of the program so if you have 3.0.8 then you don't have to worry about the tabs. He is looking into exporting the DXF in multiple pages.

 

[darkside 501st]

I heard back from Tamasoft and they made my suggestion a reality... so cool. lol Here is what they wrote:

Well, we have added the function of exporting the unfolded pattern into
multiple DXF files divided by the border of each page to current
Pepakura Designer 3.
This version will be released as next minor updated version in near future.
Before releasing it, may I ask you to test the function?
I'm happy if you could check whether the function works well.

Sincerely,
Yotsuya​

So he sent me the beta and I will test it out and let him know if there are any problems or if everything works fine. So if any of you are having trouble with the Silhouette Studio freezing up on large DXF files then this should solve that issue. Furthermore, I think it would be helpful to not have to create the separate pages ourselves. So I will let you know how it goes.

 

[Syko]

I can't wait to see if the update lives up to expectations. Way to go!!!!

 

[darkside 501st]

Ok, it works like a charm. The only problem I ran into with the beta was when I tried to print a page. I will let him know. He might have that function disabled though. Anyways, all is good and I went ahead and made a couple tutorials like the one that gsn721 did. The first one uses the Cameo to plot and cut the pepakura which is easy and accurate and the second one uses the traditional 'Print & Cut' method using the registration marks. Check them out:

https://skydrive.live.com/redir.asp...209EBD4D8A434F!116&parid=21209EBD4D8A434F!115

https://skydrive.live.com/redir.asp...209EBD4D8A434F!117&parid=21209EBD4D8A434F!115

 

[silenced]

Ok, it works like a charm. The only problem I ran into with the beta was when I tried to print a page. I will let him know. He might have that function disabled though. Anyways, all is good and I went ahead and made a couple tutorials like the one that gsn721 did. The first one uses the Cameo to plot and cut the pepakura which is easy and accurate and the second one uses the traditional 'Print & Cut' method using the registration marks. Check them out:

https://skydrive.live.com/redir.asp...209EBD4D8A434F!116&parid=21209EBD4D8A434F!115

https://skydrive.live.com/redir.asp...209EBD4D8A434F!117&parid=21209EBD4D8A434F!115

What about pdo's with textures? Can't cut those?

 

[darkside 501st]

Hmmm, I don't usually print models with textures on them. Is the problem you are referring to because the texture does not export on the DXF file?

Update: Tamasoft wrote me back to let me know the update has been released publicly. Although, when I went to the site I did not see the download. I will let them know.

Dear Mike,

We have released the updated version, Pepakura Designer 3 Ver.3.1.0a.
Thanks to your comments, the feature for exporting to multiple DXF files
was officially supported.

I have placed the guide for using Pepakura with Silhouette Cameo on the
Q&A page.

I really appreciate to your cooperation.
Sincerely,
Yotsuya​

 

[xvang24]

Hey Dark, I've gotta give it to ya bro! This is a major step in the right direction! No more pc lagg!

I was starting to give up on this.

 

[xvang24]

Ok, here's a dilemma I've been facing...

I've noticed my Gray line is different from yours. From my own experience, Anything outside the gray box do not print. Notice how my area at the bottom of the picture overlap? I can easily move the alignment inward, but that wont allow me to take advantage of all the space on my sheet.

 

[darkside 501st]

Ok, the public update is up... I think my web browser was pulling the page from cache instead of loading the new info.

Ok, here's a dilemma I've been facing...

I've noticed my Gray line is different from yours. From my own experience, Anything outside the gray box do not print. Notice how my area at the bottom of the picture overlap? I can easily move the alignment inward, but that wont allow me to take advantage of all the space on my sheet.

Hmmm... well, as far as I can tell the gray margins are not adjustable from the Silhouette Studio program. It seems as though these margins are given to the program by the printer. I would try reloading the driver for your printer.

This is what comes up on mine, as you can see my margins are different and it is the bottom margin on your setup that is causing your problem.

Just so you know if you can't get the printer to send the right margins then you could always go the route I mentioned in my 1st tutorial that uses the Cameo as a plotter and cutter. There is also an option in File > Preferences that you can select that will give you more room to work with on the page. It is called 'Cut to Edge of Page'.

 

[silenced]

Hmmm, I don't usually print models with textures on them. Is the problem you are referring to because the texture does not export on the DXF file?

Update: Tamasoft wrote me back to let me know the update has been released publicly. Although, when I went to the site I did not see the download. I will let them know.

Dear Mike,

We have released the updated version, Pepakura Designer 3 Ver.3.1.0a.
Thanks to your comments, the feature for exporting to multiple DXF files
was officially supported.

I have placed the guide for using Pepakura with Silhouette Cameo on the
Q&A page.

I really appreciate to your cooperation.
Sincerely,
Yotsuya​

From what I gather, with the Silhouette SD you would print the pattern first then use the SD to cut it out. Sounds like you cant do that with the Cameo.