EngraveLab Vs. Inspire/Enroute - Engraving Etc. Forum

From:	Semi-Accurate Engraver (LONEHAWK)	18 Apr 2006
To:	ALL	1 of 3

3559.1

I was just wondering if anyone has and is familiar with EngraveLab or Inspire/Enroute.

I would like to hear if anyone has compared the two and which are better/worse and why.

I got curious about this during a discussion in another thread that got onto questions about Casmate Pro for making good hatch/island fills for rotary engraving/routing.

Good software is essential for maxing the use/good results of any rotary engraving machine. We use Casmate at our shop and don't know how we'd live without it.

We've tried Inspire and Engrave lab in a very limited way through full function trial versions and found ourselves wanting compared to Casmate.

Couple questions. Can Inspire or Engravelab sort shapes in any way? (not via layers but relative to 0,0.) Like from left to right, inside to out etc. Do they show the sort order of the shapes. Options for cutter ups eg. machine path closed automatically. etc?

So, if there are any people out there who are really using EngraveLab or Inspire as part of their arsenal, I'd really like to hear how you like them, what they can do, and what you wish they could do that they can't. :) (Mainly relevant to rotary machining)

=====================
Take care and God bless.

Tony K. "The Semi-Accurate Engraver"

"If Time flies when you're having fun, how does it get around when you're bored?!"

EDITED: 18 Apr 2006 by LONEHAWK

From:	Peter	18 Apr 2006
To:	Semi-Accurate Engraver (LONEHAWK)	2 of 3

3559.2 In reply to 3559.1

Tony,
we have casmate as well, but it is an old program. I would have thought that Engravelab etc etc would have surpassed it by a longshot.

What do you see as the main strengths of Casmate as against engravelab...and what do you see as deficiencies.

regards

Peter :-)

Peter Vasic
Engraving Services Co.
Adelaide, Australia.
http://www.engravingservices.com.au

From:	Semi-Accurate Engraver (LONEHAWK)	19 Apr 2006
To:	Peter	3 of 3

3559.3 In reply to 3559.2
Well, one of the main things that Casmate has that I have not seen in any other program is the sort order feature. We rely on this feature heavily because we quote pretty much everything by time. So, just a simple example: If we were engraving 3 lines of text into some stainless and the text was a 4 liner filled Helvetica let's say. Eg. The quick red fox jumped over the lazy brown dog. We would need the engraver to start on line one with "The" and work it's way left to right. Also, to ensure no burr on letter at finish of engraving, the inside line of the "o" needs to go clockwise and the outside line needs to go anticlockwise. (achieving the appropriate climb mill for the appropriate edges). Then LIne 2 starts then line 3. I can achieve this sort order with Casmate in 2 clicks. To double check that i've got my sort order right, I can, with the push of a hotkey in Casmate, see every shape in my layout with a small number on it showing me which lettter is going to be engraved first and which will be last. Also, the plate or "box" that my layout is in always needs to be shape one in the layout. This allows me to "skip" that shape in our engraver control program but the shape automatically determines the plates size. This allows for ultra easy setup of single and matrix (multiplate) plate jobs. This is very important to us as every job we do has to be engraved efficiently time wise, and be "finished" when the cutter goes home. We don't touch anything after we engrave it because a lot of the metal we do is polished. When the engraving is done, it's cleaned off if necessary, then paint filled. Ok, this is just one example, but it's one of the key features we rely on to ensure effeciency and results in all of our metal engraving. (obviously this in not necessary for gravoply) :) I have yet to find a program that gives powerful control over the sort order of a job like Casmate does and that's what got me wondering about the other programs out there. I don't know EngraveLab or Inspire enough to talk about deficiencies. I would be interested to hear your opinion on EngraveLab's comparability to Casmate as far as node editing (welding ease, concentric circles, tangent object alignments etc.) These things we also rely on in Casmate and have not found them all -- or at least found them easy to use -- in other programs. I "could" go into more detail; but I don't think anyone here has the time to hear me rattle on and on. :P ===================== Take care and God bless. Tony K. "The Semi-Accurate Engraver" "If Time flies when you're having fun, how does it get around when you're bored?!"