I suspect that this request will kick up a lot of the divisions among software devotees of various dogmas, but I am hoping someone can help me. I’ve put this in General as a category because it crosses woodshop, metal shop, and laser and maybe more that I am unaware of.
Right now all my computers/pads/phones are Apple. I would like to learn inkscape, vcarve, and whatever the Dynatorch and the Multicam need to create projects. When I went out to load inkscape, I discovered that I would need to install quartz to run it on - and I’m afraid that I just do not know enough about this to be dropping another OS on my Air. I’d like to be able to work on something at home and bring it in to run if possible. But everything at home is Apple.
Is anyone running apps for any of this equipment on Apple stuff? Is it possible to do? If so, is there anyone who would be interested in teaching me how it is done? I’m just confusing myself out on YouTube.
If you use Remote Desktop to connect to our jump server, you can run most of our software as if you were sitting at a Windows machine. There are instructions on our wiki, not easy to find, and not particularly clear, IMO. Next time you are at the space, you could likely get someone to walk you through it.
He said “Quartz”. I understand his apprehension, but I have seen people with Bootcamp on macbooks and switching is incredibly fluid. It is not a 3rd party application and there is a lot of documentation.
I have Inkscape and XQuartz on my MacBook Pro and I haven’t had any issues. XQuartz launches as a program, so I haven’t had to use bootcamp or anything else.
It’s been a while since I’ve done the install, but if I’m remembering correctly - I installed both Inkscape and XQuartz separately, but when I go to launch Inkscape, it starts the XQuartz session for itself. Once I’m done, I close like normal and it ends the shell session too.
I have hunted for quite awhile to find a program for iOS that will do vector graphics and export. I haven’t found anything that fits the need yet. Yes there are some programs that can do lovely artwork, but nothing where you can design something like a leather wallet and cut it on the lasers.
Affinity Designer might work. It is $50, and there are versions for iOS, macOS, and Windows. It will save in .AI, .SVG, & .PDF formats as well as several bitmap formats like jpg, etc
Conversely, an inexpensive PC Laptop for projects like this might be an acceptable option. I’m betting that a used PC with decent spec for things like this can be had for under $300.