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Vinyl Sign Cutting Software for Linux?
prpplague asks: "a large but often over looked business in the United States is that of making vinyl signs. A Windows application to do the layout and run the plotter/cutter will cost you at least $250. I've been unable to find a Unix based application that does the same thing. Anyone out there working on something to replace this business sector's dependency on Microsoft based products?"
I did a stint in technical support for a vinyl-cutting plotter manufacturer in 1996, so I can at least give a brief idea of what this is all about.
This sort of sign does not involove cutting and then glueing (as mentioned in another comment), but the use of these big rolls of adhesive-backed vinyl. You load this on to a plotter, which basically has a knife instead of a pen, and set your job going. When finished, you have to weed the unwanted portions (basically remove any vinyl that should know be a negative area) and apply the thing to a sign, glass, your car, etc.
A lot of the fancy striping on cars is done this way, and you see the vinyl sold as "laser-cut" or "die-cut" stickers (even though they don't use lasers or dies.) All those bootleg Calvin-peeing-on-whatever-stickers could be used as an example.
At least back in 96, the big manufacturers were Roland, Summagraphics, and Anagraph. (I worked for Anagraph, and those were the only other names I heard. We could've been piddly small, I never cared enough about the sign-making industry to find out.). Our plotters basically worked by hooking up to the serial port and just throwing an HPGL file at it. Nothing too hard. The *nix equivalent would be "cat art.hpgl >/dev/ttyS0'
So if you can put together a *insert your favorite vector graphics format here* to HPGL converter, it could be done. Around the time I left, they were all wetting their pants about printing other images on the vinyl before cutting, but I don't know how that works.
-transiit
I'm not trolling, but I'm not sure I see the point here. I used to do a lot of vinyl sign work, and I don't really see the 'dependency on Microsoft products' being an issue in this sector.
... but instead to get sign software for free. Maybe you can get in touch with the maker of a piece of cheap sign software ... and offer to partner with them to do the porting to linux for them.
Typically, the sign design stations are dedicated boxes as when they're not in use designing, or driving the plotter, they're not making money. Your typical setup will cost you thousands of dollars for a good plotter - so the OS really doesn't add a lot to the total cost.
If your problem is that there isn't any free sign design software - that has nothing to do with MS. MS doesn't make ANY sign software - but most sign software is written for Windows (some Mac too).
The Roland cutter I used to work with would accept HPGL files that were sent to the serial port, so you may want to start there, but the problem isn't just getting data to the cutter. It's in having a good design program to work with to generate the information.
If your purpose is to get rid of the 'reliance on MS' then maybe you can get an older copy of FlexiSign, CASmate, or CADLink Signlab (which all started as Win3.1 apps) and get them to run under Wine.
If that doesn't suit your purpose, then it means your question was mis-stated and that your care isn't in removing a dependence on MS software