Export to DXF? (or other vector)

[JesterMusician]

Hello, I've been using the MBC for a long time to make punchcards for my . It's an invaluable tool for the job, and has paid for itself in ad revenue. Well done!

Recently I purchased a Silhouette Portrait, a die cutter for crafting, and I've been using it to cut the holes out of lengthy songs. It uses vector images as input. However, currently MBC only exports rasters in PDF/JPG format, so I have to do some image processing in order to trace the holes. I'm wondering if it would be possible for MBC to generate a vector? That way I could more easily import it into the Silhouette software.

Keep up the great work!

[jbadmin]

Hi

Can it use SVG? I wrote a converter from svg to mbc a while back (I was supplied strips setup for printing in .ai format, converting to svg made them much more parsable so I could write out my .mbc), it wouldn't be too hard to go the other way as the format is straightforward. Probably something I'd look to do as an external tool to MBC, as the .mbc format would be enough to start with to generate the svg (or dxf though I haven't generated that format myself in the past). SVG can be converted to dxf using inkscape.

Not sure when I'll get a chance to look at it though, but it's something anyone with a little coding experience could handle - python would be a good choice for this.

cheers,
grant

[JesterMusician]

SVG would be great. I do have considerable experience in coding, so if the MBC format is straightforward I could try making my own converter. A file specification would be nice, but I could figure it out myself if I have to.

[jbadmin]

The format is very simple, all ascii and the header keys are fairly self explanatory.

Of interest to you would be

NoteCount=

after that entry it simply loops through 6 values per note:
p=pitch
t=time
v=volume
s=selected (ui)
a=active (since you can deactivate notes)
i=if the note is illegal due to mechanical limitations (ie too close together)

Check the FileVersion as in the not to distant future I'll may add other keys (a pitch-shift is on the cards though it may be global), so you might be better off walking through the values and incrementing when you hit the next 'p=', which would then be your next notes pitch value.

cheers,
grant

[jbadmin]

[mathom]

This would be a great addition to the program. Either built in or as a standalone utility. Has this idea been taken any further? I have a fair amount of coding experience, but would not want to reinvent the wheel.

[jbadmin]

I haven't had time to take it any further myself.

IMHO as a standalone makes more sense for this - anybody needing a vector version will likely have very specific requirements and updating mbc with a UI to be general enough to cover potential usage cases makes less sense to me, where good command line options would be a better way to go.

cheers,
grant

[mathom]

You are probably correct. I'll have to put this on my list of things to do.