This past week we learned how to use a vinyl cutter. This is a new tool for me and I'm excited to try it out. As a small token of appreciation for formalizing digital circuit design, I decided to cut a portrait of Claude Shannon to apply to my desktop computer.
Not surprisingly, there aren't many vector images of Claude Shannon online. So I edited a raster image in Photoshop until I had a nice looking two tone version. I also managed to vectorize this image in Photoshop, but whenever I tried to save the results the program got stuck. So I installed Inkscape and used it for bitmap tracing.
Despite all the detail, the vinyl cutter only took a few minutes to cut my design. Weeding, however, took two hours. Finally I removed a panel from my desktop's enclosure and transfered the image.
I'm quite pleased with the result! The vinyl cutter is a tool I now see myself using regularly.
