I am very  glad this is being discussed!

Here are my opinions from what I've been able to do thus far using
Inkscape and my vinyl cutters:

I would not bother with any format other than HPGL.  It is a standard
for desktop and large format cutting plotters - not just Graphtec.
(Graphtec has some proprietary formats, as do others...)

I have a 15 year old 24" Roland plotter and a less than week old
Graphtec 48" plotter ( vinyl cutters ).

The exact same file can be cut by both machines with no alterations
other than the original setup.
Graphtec defaults to it's own version - GP-GL,  this needs changed on
the control panel to standard HP-GL.

What I do right now is:
1.  Make the drawing in Inkscape
2.  Copy what needs cut to the clipboard
3.  Open a new file in Inkscape
4.  Paste clipboard data into new file
5.  SHIFT+CTRL+D to access properties of new file
6.  Click the "Fit page to selection" button
7.  Save file as "newplot.ps"
8.  in terminal, enter: ./graphtec.sh < newplot.ps
9.  plotter starts and cuts perfectly, absolutely ignorant it is being
controlled by open source software!

The file 'graphtec.sh'  is a modified version of a script found at:
http://www.3x6.nl/inkscape_hpgl/....html

It uses hpgl-distiller - a program that can be downloaded from:
http://pldaniels.com/hpgl-distiller

This sounds complicated, but once it is set up, it isn't much worse than
any other vinyl cutting software.  I've used plenty of them!

I will gladly help actively work on and test this.  I also have plenty
of other ideas to help inkscape become a full featured vinyl cutting
solution.


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