Hey all,

There's a new Silhouette SD software available, it is significantly better/more user friendly then the old one and a complete redesign. The biggest difference for me is the ability to zoom into 3000% which allows for closer cuts. Also the curved shapes are pretty good. I'm converting Maiden now and it's working really well. Check it out if you're interested

http://www.silhouetteamerica.com/software.aspx

Thanks for the heads up on that...playing with it now...LOTS of changes!

Have they made it native to Window 7 yet? My biggest bugbear with the system.

Lord Abaddon of Wormwood

Anyone figure out where they moved the "Insert bitmap file" feature to?

The features you will find gone are, Insert File, Position Setting, and larger registration mark areas.

That is right, currently you can not get the bottom registration marks as low as what Robomaster can do (which works for current CraftRobo and Silhouette machines). This mean you can not use current WWG GSD's in the Silhouette Studio. Although you can import the GSD's it will not import the registration mark positions (as far as I've been able to tell).

So basically all the commands used for building custom GSDs other than actually tracing the lines are gone. Ah well, back to the old version, and setting aside a copy of the old installer while I'm at it.

I can't believe they would issue new software that invalidates current .GSD files. Poor software engineering.

To be fair to the Silhouette Studio...you can import a file into the studio a lot easier than in the old software...you just open the file, or drag and drop it into the workspace. It does come over much larger than the origional tho, so make note of the image size before you pull it over. There is a pretty easy tool available to resize the image.
Converting files from scratch is a much more pleasant experience than the old ROBO Master software tho...the UI and tools in the Studio are way better.

As HP says tho, the killer "oops" from our point of view using WWG .gsd files is...it wont...That NEEDS to be fixed !

So great upgrade, but crippled for already produced files

I reckon that everyone on this and other cardstock model forums ,who use a Silhouette machine, should be emailing Silhouette asking for this to be fixed...keep it polite, but make it known that this oversight on their part has crippled their software for a great deal of hobbyists.


support@silhouetteamerica.com

I received a reply back from Silhouette, asking for examples of files that were not registering in Studio.
Sent them some .gsd files i tested last night , and also added on a couple more of the problems we have been having. The improper size of an imported image, and the lack of a tool to set the origin of an imported page.

Will keep you folks up to date on any replies... they do seem interested in fixing Studio

I sent them an email yesterday as well. Although I have not heard a reply back.

Humm, well at least one of us got a response.
Anything else i should let them know about whilst i seem to have their ear?

Solospirit, to add to the weight of the request may I ask what you sent them in your first email?

Based on what I am reading I will not upgrade to the new version until it is fixed.
But, if you can post a form letter of what we need to say I would gladly use all my various email accounts requesting the assistance we need to get our old GSD files to work.

I wouldnt call this a "form" leter, but this is what I sent them

"I use my Silhouette SD for making cardstock models. These models are provided by a number of small business owners who make their living designing these for various other hobbies.
One of the attractions for myself, and many other hobbyists making these kits, has been the ease of converting them to, or the designer providing .gsd format files for us to print and cut them with machine cutters.
 
The recent release of Silhouette Studio has changed the way that the software handles the registration marks from old .gsd files. Many of these companies, in the interests of their customers, and for extra utility in the models they produced , used a wider and longer cutting area than was default. This was fine with the old ROBO Master software, and rarely if ever caused any problems with cutting or printing.
 
There are probably hundreds or even thousands of commercially available .gsd files for these kits that have now been made unrecognizable with this change.
 
I am hoping that there may be some updates to the Studio program in development that might resolve this issue. Or if there are not any on the way, that you might seriously consider adding them in the future.
Thanks in advance for any comment , or help you may be able to give us in this matter.
 
Sincerely,"

Also, the Studio software works quite happily alongside the ROBO Master software,at least on my two machines, (desktop and laptop both running Win7 and both with 64bit drivers and ROBO master software running fine) it does not cause ROBO to stop working..So its probably Ok to download and install it alongside ROBO Master (Nobody has mentioned it anyway so I would says its not going to be an issue)

Update, from Silhouette:-
"Thank you for your follow up report and images issued. We will pass them along and appreciate your continued patience as we seek to update and improve the software.

Please note that If you are seeking to place an object at 0,0 you may access the “Move” icon (click on the “Home” icon along the upper-right list of icons to see which icon is listed as the “Move” menu). In this menu you may move any selected image to a specified position on your page.

Please let us know if you have any other questions."

I got a similar email from them last night. I hope they will be able to do something about the registration mark issue.

Me too...its not like they need to make them user adjustable to the older settings either...as long as we can read them in and cut them...I think that would be all we need.
New sets would have to be in studio format tho

I haven't tested extensively but the studio software seems to detect my craftrobo okay. Just in case anyone else with craftrobo was wondering .

I'll try and get a test cut done later got some pirates to get done and a laptop to fix at the moment .

Studio got an update that has allowed reg marks to be set further apart...have not tried cutting yet tho

Got a reply back from the guys working the problem
"George
I'm emailing from the programming team responsible for Silhouette Studio.

In response to your recent feedback regrding the software:

Silhouette Studio now has a left handed and right handed registration marks for the auto registration mark detection.

This will cater for the Silhouette Studio that you have tried and also the page layout used for RoboMaster. The minimum reg margin has also been reduced to 0.395 inch.

We're in process of ensuring that relevant registration details are extracted from GSD files, and are currently testing with Generic6 in Wall.GSD and Wall4i Compueter.GSD that you provided earlier.

We'd appreciate a small selection of other GSD files for testing. In particular ones with cut and dashed elements, and any with more complex cutlines.

All the best

Nick"

I shall be sending them a few more cut files for them to play with soon.

Got sent a new version of Studio to try today...its recognizing the reg marks, and is assigning appropriate cut and dash lines...so we have progress. unfortunately its stretching the lines ..presumably because its not scaling things right yet.

The engineers seem to be a pretty cool bunch there, and they definitely are listening and trying to solve our problems...

Will keep working with them , and let you folks know how its going

Solospirit you should try sending them one of Onemonks organic gsd's if they want something a little more complex.
I can't think of anything more complex node wise than one of those.

Already sent. Some Terra force marines, and the Weapons from the Hybrids, and have received some feedback on them...I think they will be trying to get us some optomised software for making these, with a smaller number of cut sections. They were not aware of the different methods we used to make the cut files, so its been interesting for them too...Im hoping we all get a better Studio software out of this

I think it's great the Silhouette engineers are so willing to listen. Thanks for taking the time to work with them, Solospirit!

No problem Spoo, I want Studio fixed as much , or more than anyone
The software guys at Aspex Software (who are the devs of the Studio software) have really been good to work with, even just by email. I get the feeling they enjoy working on this stuff for us too...hey they are a bunch of techs!

Aspex Supervisor.."Ok guys what are we working on today, the super cute floofy lace and kittens patterns for the scrapbookers?....or these super cool cardstock SF Miniatures for the gaming geeks?"
Aspex Engineers (in chorus, with gusto).. "GEEEEKS!!!"

They have started work on the Outline Trace utility for Studio. Still working through the other issues, but I believe we shall be seeing an updated Studio release shortly.

Will keep you folks posted.

Apologies for not updating this for a while..I have had nothing back from Aspex recently, and have been very busy studying for a new certification.

Latest version of Silhouette Studio is now 1.0.32 available from

Here

I shall be working with it today, if any of you folks want to try it...let me know what you think, and what problems it still has

No apology required. The fact that you're keeping an eye on this is awesome.

Thanks Zenguy...
I took a bit of a break to run some stuff through
Good news...it seems to be handling old .gsd files a LOT better now. I ran through some stuff i had converted, some files from Mel and the Halloween tree from here, and they all cut as well, or maybe a little better than with the ROBO Master software...thumbs up for that.

i also tried to use it to convert some stuff to cut. This is an area that still needs work, drawing the outline and making the cuts and perforations shapes and lines is much easier and more accurate. Importing the image file is still not working right...it imports at the wrong scale still, and one I did printed at the wrong size..not good. (although i think i know why it happened)

So we are making progress, but still have a ways to go.
ROBO Master software will not be available from Silhouette after November...so download the latest version and keep it safe..i still think we will be needing it for a while

MacOS success.
Not an exclamation point; the cut was slightly off so I'll run some more pages through later after I make more carrier sheets and see about eliminating some variables. I ran page 1 of the Sentinel tree through, I'll use the same file later.

It did cut straight from the file though without my needing to launch WinXP through Paralells, so that was pretty cool.

My system; MacOSX 10.5.8, 2GHz Intel Core Duo

At least we are seeing some improvement

Thanks for the input SD