Update, easy way to make a Flutterfly

THIS IS AN UPDATE

First you need to create a postscript file. I suggest you do your drawing in Inkscape . It's an open sourced program for vector drawing. But not just that, it is the only app I have that lets me save drawings as //CLEAN// postscript files that we can work with later. So even if you do your original drawing in Illustrator, save it as a .SVG and reopen it in Inkscape, and from that application save your drawing as a .ps file. Postscript. Don Lancaster wrote some postscript code that can take a post script file and then turn it into a simple text file that contains the numbers 0-7. The meaning:0 - E1 - NE2 - N3 - NW4 - W5 - SW6 - S7 - SEU means move the pen upD means move the pen downand that's all we're going to be using=========================ALL FILES CAN BE FOUND AT:For those who like to hear the instructions here's a video:=========================Some people were having trouble figuring out how to create a flut file, so Bryn helped everyone out by creating this program that does it for you, make sure to send it a file that is "fair", that is without any showpage's, or quit commands in the .ps. The program automatically spits them out, but check the ps if you hit the error page.--The old way to create a Flutterfy--Once you saved your drawing as a postscript file. Open it up in a text editor like notepad. Also open up the file yourpostscripthere.ps in notepad. Cope the entire body of your postscript drawing and paste it in flutterafy.ps right after the line that says:% ============= YOUR POSTSCRIPT SOURCE FILE STARTS HERE ===============% ============= MUST NOT INCLUDE SHOWPAGE, QUIT, ETC... ===============then you paste your stuff in here% ============== YOUR POSTSCRIPT SOURCE FILE ENDS HERE ================then change the paths in these two lines:/destfilename (c://pope.txt) def(./pope.txt) readflutfile % read selected flutfilechange these to the values you want to find your finished flut file at.Resave yourpostscripthere.psand install http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/doc/GPL/index.htm Ghostscript]: Once you have ghostscript installed you can either drag yourpostscripthere.ps to the icon, or open it up inside ghostscript, it'll create a flutfile for you in the place you told it to c://whateveryousaid (remember to use doube /'s like c://sommat// ..)So now you'll have a flut file. here's a demo for ya:(this is the stencil that i cut out, it says "hello lasers!")next you need to open a C compiler. the old version of bloodshed DEV CPP works great! Get v 4.0, not the new one.This is the flutafy.cpp file that you can edit to run your own flut file. Right now if you compile it it will create an executable that will accept any filename as a parameter. So you just drag your .txt or .flut file over to the .exe and it'll start chomping. chompchompchomp. I'm providing this code so if you want to make any improvements you can. Please share with me though.If you don't know much about programming. Here is the executable:And if you have XP you'll need this one:XP users will need this DLL to run this code:(For instructions on how to install a DLL, Lifehacker has a nice one.)Now you can drag any file that has 0-9 for step directions (a flut file. I have some in: http://modati.com/lasercutter/) and it will start communicating with the laser cutter you just made.If your parallel port is plugged in and everything is working okay you should be cutting in no time!-LoveBilal Ghalib