AutoVectors Studio: Free Online Software for PPF Template Layout, Nesting and Plotter Output

Why a template shop wrote software

Most of the people who buy our templates are installers who have just bought a plotter. They own the file. What they often do not own is CorelDRAW or Illustrator, and the software that came with the cutter is usually good at cutting and poor at laying parts out on a roll.

That gap is the whole reason Studio exists. It is a convenience layer, not a lock. The template you downloaded stays a normal file on your disk, it opens in any vector program, and nothing you make in Studio depends on Studio afterwards. We sell templates, so the software can be free.

It also works on templates that are not ours. Studio does not check where a file came from.

From the file you downloaded to the file your plotter cuts

1. Open the template and pick the parts

Drop the file in. It opens in a preview panel laid out the way the parts sit on the car, so you can recognise them: pick one part, several, or the whole kit and add them to the roll. Set the roll width — 30, 60, 91, 122 or 152 cm, or your own figure, in centimetres or inches.

The demo kit that loads with one click: 54 parts, still in vehicle order, on a 152 cm roll.

2. Autonest packs them while you watch

Studio nests by the real shape of each part, not by its bounding box, so a curved panel tucks into its neighbour's hollow the way you would place it by hand. The search runs on every core your computer has and keeps showing the best layout it has found; stop it whenever you are happy and the best result is kept.

Three things that matter on a real job:

• Working width, not roll width. The pinch rollers take the first few centimetres of each edge, so a 152 cm roll usually cuts about 148. You nest to the width you can actually cut.
• What you placed by hand is respected. Select the parts to nest and anything left unselected stays where you put it; a part you lock stays put through every nest; grouped parts nest as one unit.
• Cutouts count as material. A roof with a sunroof is over a square metre of film doing nothing — switch on Use part cutouts and the search places small parts inside those openings.

The layout is split into worksheets of a length you choose, and each worksheet is one plotter run. On the demo kit, a 30-second search put the 54 parts on 4 sheets and 13.43 m of film.

Left: the search running, best-so-far on screen. Right: finished, with a suggestion to try a longer worksheet for one run fewer.

3. Gravity, if you want the last few centimetres

Press Gravity and the view tips on its side: the worksheets stand upright and the parts fall and settle as far as they can — real physics, with the gap you set between parts and the film edges respected in every frame. Stop hands back the best layout that passed every check; Keep takes the frame on screen as it stands. How much it gains depends on how much slack the layout had left.

The roll tipped on its side, parts settling under physics, the running total in the bar.

4. The cut file — one per plotter run

Export HPGL/PLT, DXF R12, SVG or EPS (Illustrator 8, the dialect Roland CutStudio wants), one file per worksheet, at true 1:1 real-world scale, with holes cut before outer contours so a sensor cutout is never left hanging. Open it in whatever software came with your plotter.

Two checks run before anything leaves Studio. Overlaps are tested on the real shapes, not on boxes, and the area where two parts touch is shaded so you can see it. And the export sends only what is fully on the roll — if a part is hanging over the edge, Studio names it before you commit, instead of you finding it in the film.

5. Or send the job straight to the plotter (beta)

Press Send to plot and the plotter screen fills the window: the checks and the Cut button on the left, a picture of the cut on the right — drawn from the very bytes the plotter will receive, seen from the front of the machine.

Before every job Studio puts the width the plotter can cut, read from the machine when it answers or typed by you when it does not, beside the width the sheet needs. Too wide and the send is blocked, with a re-nest at the plotter's own width offered. When it fits, it still waits for you to press OK, I checked the width before the Cut button comes on. A layout nested at 152 cm ruins film on a plotter that cuts 148, and this is where that is caught.

Left: blocked, and offered a re-nest at the width that passes. Right: it fits, the width is confirmed, Cut is live. The pictures were taken with a stand-in answering as a Graphtec CE7000; no film was cut for them.

What it needs. Chrome, Edge or Firefox; Safari cannot reach a plotter and says so. A cutter on a COM or serial port needs nothing at all. A USB plotter goes through the AutoVectors Bridge, a 10.7 MB tray program you download once: it installs into your own Windows profile with no administrator password and no driver, and it never connects to the internet.

Beta, and said plainly. The transport is proved on one Graphtec CE7000 over USB in HP-GL mode. Any other USB or Windows-printer cutter is offered the same file, and the 100 mm test square is how you find out whether yours takes it. Silhouette, Cricut and Brother machines are refused by name, because they only take their maker's software. Download keeps working exactly as before.

The editing tools, and what they are for

These are not a general vector editor. Each one exists because of something that goes wrong on a real installation.

Edit shape — node by node

Right-click a part and choose Edit shape (nodes). Every node appears; drag one, pull its handles to bend the curve, add a point, delete one. Double-click a contour to take the whole loop, so an emblem cutout comes off in one motion. Restore original shape puts the part back exactly as it arrived, whatever you did to it.

The menu, and the same panel open in node mode with 49 nodes.

Reduce nodes — fewer points, the same shape

Traced templates often carry far more nodes than the shape needs. Reduce nodes re-fits the curve with fewer points instead of deleting them, and shows the node count and the worst deviation in millimetres live. In the picture a bumper strip comes down from 258 nodes to 143, −45%, and the outline moves by at most ±0.33 mm. Keep shape holds every corner and caps the drift at 0.4 mm. It is the same clean-up we run on our own templates before they ship.

Add material — wrap allowance where you want it

Click once on a part's edge and Studio selects the whole side it belongs to — a door's shut line, the front lip of a hood. Then +3, +5 or +10 mm, or type your own figure up to 100 mm. The extra film draws in green with the amount written on it. Double-click a contour instead and the material goes all the way round the part. If the piece you want is not a whole side, Mark a stretch lets you click the start and the end, and only that run grows.

One click selects a side; +10 mm grows it from 39.01 cm to 40.01 cm, drawn in green with the amount on it.

No template? Draw one over a photo

Import a PNG or JPG — a photo of the panel, a scan of a piece that worked — set its real-world size, dim it, and lock it so it cannot slip. Then draw over it with the pen: a click places a corner, click-and-drag pulls a curve, Ctrl holds a hard straight line. Close the shape on its first point and it fills, ready to cut like any other part. The photo itself never reaches the plotter — only the lines you drew.

Tracing a panel at its real size, and the shape one click from closing.

And the rest

Relief cuts that split a part along a line you draw, corner radius, merge, group and ungroup, mirror and rotate, a measure tool in millimetres or inches, and a ghost of the original under whatever you changed. Projects save as a normal file on your disk and reopen exactly as you left them.

Which file to send to which software

Studio writes the formats the cutting programs actually read. If you are not sure which to choose, try PLT first — most plotter software reads it. If your software will not open it, send SVG. On a Roland, send EPS. Use DXF only if none of those work.

Import lists change between versions and licence tiers, so check your software's documentation. Whatever you use, cut the calibration square and measure it before you commit material.

What it costs, and what you keep

Studio is free and there is no account to make, no limit on how many files you open, and nothing that expires. We can do that because we sell templates, not software.

Your file opens on your computer and every bit of the geometry work runs there — the layout never waits on our servers. We collect the files you open, export and save, and basic technical details about them, to help us improve Studio. The export is a normal file on your disk: take it anywhere, open it in anything, keep it forever. Studio takes no ownership of anything you open or draw, and nothing you make in it depends on us afterward.

What is new in 0.29.0

Across the roll, the plotter counts from its own origin edge — the right-hand edge as you face a Graphtec. Studio now counts the same way: the ruler reads zero at that edge, every worksheet restarts at its own, and the readout for a selected part says how far it sits from it. On the plotter screen you choose whether a job starts at the plotter's edge, with the blank film between the parts and the edge dropped, or where the sheet has it, cut exactly as the screen shows. The downloaded file is not affected either way.

Everything Studio ships is listed, dated and described at studio.autovectors.com/updates.

Questions we are asked

Is AutoVectors Studio really free?

Yes. It is free to use, with no account, no subscription and no trial period. AutoVectors makes its money selling pre-cut templates.

Do I have to buy AutoVectors templates to use it?

No. Studio opens any SVG, PDF, DXF, AI, EPS or PLT vector file, wherever it came from, and it will trace a photo if you have no vector at all.

Do I need to install anything?

Not for the editor — it runs in the browser. Only sending a job straight to a USB plotter needs the AutoVectors Bridge, a small Windows helper program, and downloading a cut file instead needs nothing at all.

Does it work on a tablet or a phone?

Yes. The whole tool works by finger on Android tablets and phones, node editing and cut lines included.

Can it open CorelDRAW .cdr files?

No — that is CorelDRAW's own format and no browser can read it. Studio says so plainly instead of half-importing it. Every AutoVectors template package also contains SVG, PDF, DXF and AI; open one of those.

Is the exported file really 1:1?

Yes, at true real-world scale. The one thing that can still be wrong is the plotter's own step size, which is why Studio cuts a 100 × 100 mm calibration square first on a machine it has not cut with.

Which plotters can it send to directly?

Send to plot is beta. It is proved on one Graphtec CE7000 over USB in HP-GL mode; any other USB, Windows-printer or serial cutter is offered the same bytes, and the test square shows whether yours takes them. Silhouette, Cricut and Brother are refused by name.

What happens to my files?

They open on your computer and the geometry work happens there. We collect the files you open, export and save, and basic technical details about them, to help us improve Studio. Nothing is sold or passed to third parties, and a file only ever becomes a public template with your say-so.

Browse the template library at autovectors.com — pre-cut PPF, wrap and window tint patterns for cars and motorcycles, delivered as CDR, AI, PDF, DXF and SVG, downloaded instantly and yours to keep.