rom
the time I was knee high I have watched my father work on stone.
During this time I have seen many changes. I have seen him go from
producing monuments by hand, to lettering being done with the metal
Spaceright plates, then to using the SKS Letters with the stamp
machine, and now finally using the computer and plotter. A lot has
changed in a very short amount of time.
The
computer is a wonderful tool to make our lives easier and more productive.
Yet, I see many evidences that these changes are not well accepted.
Some would lead you to believe that the computer is incapable of
producing work that is of the same quality of that which was done by
hand in years past. An excellent example of this is this ad posted in
a recent MB news magazine. The name of the company has been
edited out as I wish not to single out any one company or individual.
The company simply states that they have hand drawn designs that
cannot be accomplish by a computer. Fact or Myth? We need to divide
this into two sections to have an accurate view of the problem. 1.
The Tool. 2. The person using it.
Computers
have come a long way and I dare say they have now come full circle.
In the beginning there were problems, as with any beginning; a cutter
is a complex piece of equipment, but for the most part the bugs have
been ironed out. The software is getting better and better and to put
it simply it gets the job done. As a whole, the computer system is no
longer the limiting factor. The technology is there and it works. Not
only does it work, it works well! The software and hardware are
extremely accurate; most plotters are now accurate to one
one-hundredth of an inch, software is even better. In our shop we use
CorelDraw which has .1 micron technology. That means you have a
400,000% zoom level, 254,000 DPI, or in inches you are accurate to
.000001 inch. That is 6 decimal places. We have come a long way. You
show me a human hand that can cut and draw with such accuracy.
The
true limiting factor is the person behind the computer. Machines do
what you tell them. You put garbage in you get garbage out. It is as
simple as that. Too many think that you go out, buy a computer, set
it up, and with a puff of magic it is going to do miracles. Wonderful
designs are going to just pop out of it. Sorry but it doesn't work
that way. To learn a computer system takes a lot of work. I have been
working with CorelDraw for 8 years and I am now just beginning to
truly understand what is possible with the program. In fact, I learn
something new in the program almost every day and that is after 8
years of use. The employee is your most important asset. The computer
is just a tool to empower them.
It
is now true that you can achieve detail you would have never dreamed
by hand because it was much too time consuming. You can go from a
simple, single line panel to a wonderful, twisting ribbon in the form
of a heart. The computer will cut it the same way every time and with
the same quality. With the right employee and a good computer you
will be able to do wonderful things.
If
you have questions or comments about this article email me at: shelbym@v-cut.com
