Changing Focus Until the Software Patches are Delivered.

If I thought it would help the software development effort, I would continue to test why an SVG does or does not render correctly with eCraftShop Pro.  (I am using the term 'RENDER" to include either drawing or cutting.  If a shape will not draw, it certainly will not cut.)  But, the SVG import and rendering functionality is SO dysfunctional  that it's probably best to just add it to the top of our triaged fix list and get on to other discoveries.  So, here it is:

TRIAGE FIX #1: IMPORT AND CUT SVGs CORRECTLY
TRIAGE FIX #2: IMPORT AND CUT SD SHAPES CORRECTLY
TRIAGE FIX #3: IMPORT AND CUT MENU SELECTED SHAPES CORRECTLY

Now, let's move on....

In my mind, the product that you and I downloaded and have been trying to get to work has enough designed functionality to be the product that is delivered freely with every eCraft.  My strategy at this point would be to take a step backwards and say to my customers...

"You will still get a free copy of eCraftShop Pro when it is ready... But, it is NOT this product.  It will be MUCH more than this product.  So, for now, what you have will be called eCraftShop Home Designer.  And, it will be the basic foundation upon which our professional product will be built. We ask you to bear with us for while as we first work to stabilize the features in the product you now have and then begin to the work to complete the full eCraftShop Pro package.  And, we promise you that the final eCraftShop Pro that is delivered to you will outperform any other digital die cutting software on the market today. "

Now, I'm not eCraft, so I don't know how they plan to move forward.  I DO know that they have had the wake-up call that EVERY individual and company needs to have before than can be truly successful.  I know a LOT of successful people and very few of them got to where they are without some real setbacks that forged the foundations of their ultimate success.  One of my favorite sermons was titled, "Your Failures are NOT Final."

Few things have been as successful as the lightbulb.  And, few inventors will ever be as famous as Thomas Edison.  And there have been few inventors that endured more failures.  It is estimated that he tried more than 10,000 materials before he found the one that worked.   Each failure propelled him in a new, more promising direction until he created something that few of us would be willing to do without today.  The Lightbulb.  And, don't forget that phonograph he invented.  It took him TEN YEARS to bring that to market!

Fortunately, I don't think eCraft will have 10,000 failures before they have the best digital die cutting machine in the marketplace.  And, hopefully, their biggest failures are behind them with their maiden attempt at delivering eCraftShop software.  I hope they are using the term FIASCO in their internal memos.  Because FIASCOS spur us on to do things RADICALLY differently.

So, I would like to see us explore what we have and come up with fixes and minor changes that would suffice for now as the larger, long term effort for a spectacular eCraftShop Pro is fully developed.  If we can accept that the product we have now could be the "LITE" version, whatever it would be called. then we can concentrate on getting this feature set rock solid and functioning smoothly.  Period. 

SVG IMPORT AND RENDERING A BASIC FEATURE 

Of course, SVG Import is a must, even for a "Lite" product.  A "Pro" product should go well beyond simply importing and rendering SVG files.  The 'Pro' product should permit extensive modification of SVG files.

LINE FUNCTIONALITY

Even at the basic level some changes will have to be addressed with the LINE TOOL.  The only time we want to draw without closing a path is in the PEN mode.  So, how the LINE TOOL behaves should be determined by the current CUT LINE / DRAW LINE selection.  The end of a line must be able to be snapped to close a path when in CUT LINE mode.

CURVED LINE FUNCTIONALITY

The current behavior of the CURVED LINE tool invokes a "What in the world were they THINKING???" response.  Again, a curved line, by itelf might be useful to draw.  But, it is NOT going to be useful to CUT.  The ends of the curved line should be anchored in a path meant to cut.  And, currently, the CURVED LINE tool is far too primitive to be of much use and it is VERY difficult to bring the ends together with other curved lines to form a real path.

GENERAL USER INTERFACE

One of the reasons why I would support trying to make our primary immediate goal that of stabilizing the product we've downloaded is that I am not all that confident that the language or foundation underneath the current product is robust enough to support a full set of 'PRO' features.  I am using a computer with Windows 7, 64-bit and an i5 -750 processor with 6 GB of RAM.  When I import a large SVG, it seems to choke more than one would think it should.  So, it seems wise, to me, to maximize performance at this level of functionality before adding more.  Even if C++ is used, there are two styles available to the programmers.  The easiest is called "Managed Code" where the C++ run-time manages the use of memory.  But, it may be that a truly blazing digital die cutter application requires compiling in an "Un-Managed Code" environment.  Being able to observe the current product for a while will help determine if the underlying assumptions upon with the product is based are correct.

Foundations and assumptions should be based on the performance expected under the maximum specifications and functionality that can be reasonably predicted at full maturity of the product.  So, the performance under the current feature load needs to assessed before moving forward.  Otherwise,Craftwell could find itself in the same position down the road.

Let me give an example very near and dear to me.  As some may know, I have a real interest in making 3D modeling much, much easier because I think that in the not-to-distant future we will have 3D printers in our homes and businesses.  I published two blogs on two related products, Cosmic Blobs and CB Model Pro  that had a marvelously simple user interface for creating 3D objects.   But, unfortunately, Dessault was forced to abandon both because the underlying engine simply could not be expanded without slowing to a crawl.  They started from ground zero, using what they'd learned from these two products and created 3DVIA, built on a new engine that COULD be expanded.  They now have more than 500 million users!!!

So, as you can see, it is very, very important to get the basic engine right.  If we can accept the current eCraftShop version for a while, to allow for complete stabilization and optimization, the development of the final eCraftShop Pro will have better legs on which to stand.  Craftwell and the software developers will have time to evaluate the basic engine before proceeding.

It will also allow Craftwell to put a more comprehensive user input and beta testing structure into place before finalizing the eCraftShop Pro feature set for the final design specifications.

Frankly, if Craftwell or Digital Avenues thought the current feature set comprised a 'Pro' product then they really do need our input.  I, for one, will not be satisfied with the moniker of 'Pro' until the feature set is BETTER and MORE ROBUST than any and all digital die cutter applications out there.  And, that includes Make the Cut, Sure Cuts A Lot and Funtime 2010!  

The marvelous eCraft hardware design deserves nothing less.

So, what am I saying... bottom line...

I'm asking the eCraft community to focus on what needs to be done to make the feature set of the product we've downloaded into a mature product distinct from eCraftShop Pro.  The need to fix the SVG and cutting problems are a given.  But, beyond those, what needs to be done to THIS feature set to make it USEFUL to you NOW.  So, let's turn our attention on the LINE TOOL, the CURVED LINE tool and the other tools in the current product and suggest how these basic tools need to be improved until they meet your complete  satisfaction.

Then, and only then. at least in my opinion, is Craftwell ready to move on to a true Pro product.  Obviously, we need to hear what YOU think on this subject.

SVG Behavior - Size makes a difference

I've been playing with files that people have sent me and it's been quite interesting to try to ferret out why the eCraft reacts so differently to seemingly similar paths.  But, there are a couple of things I'd like to point out that I have found.

First, the best way to study the behavior of the eCraft with imported SVG is to change the output from CUT to Pen.  Click on the shape and select the PEN radio button.  The lines will turn red.  However, you cannot rely on color alone to determine if a shape will cut or draw.  If you copy and paste an image that was selected for PEN, the copy will show in red; but, it will revert to CUT.  You must click on the object to see which radio button is selected for each object.

The pen allows you to observe the detail of the rendering WAY better than a cut permits.  And, you can send the eCraft a file that could not actually be cut, such as the Penguin, by Ruthie Gedalovitch (UK) that you will see later.

But first, let's examine some drawings that were made to experiment with a file sent to me by Carolina Mejia of Tienda de Scrapbookin in Columbia, South America.  In fact, she sent me three different SVG files and we'll examine the others later.  But first left's look at Corazon.SVG that was created in CorelDraw and exported as an SVG.  The first thing I do when testing a new SVG is to look at the XML style code inside the file.  Here is what the CorelDraw SVG looked like.

As you can see, there are spaces between the letters.  At first, I thought this was a CorelDraw issue.  But, I believe it has to do with having been created on a machine having a CodePage for South America,  But, it threw me at first.  I then imported the SVG file, converted it to a PEN drawing rather than a cut and came up with this.

Kind of ragged, isn't it?  But, this is a perfect example of why using the PEN is better than using the CUT when first testing an SVG shape in eCraftShop Pro.  We can instantly see that this will not cut.  And, because we were drawing rather than cutting we could use nice cheap printer paper for our tests!

Of course I wanted to see if the CorelDraw format was the problem.  So, I imported the CorelDraw SVG into Inkscape and saved it in PLAIN format SVG.  Here is the drawing that resulted from this test.

At first glance, that's quite an improvement.  But, there are those pesky misalignments between the starting and the ending.  And, there is some artifacting near the bottom.  So, I wondered if I could make it smoother. So, I brought it back into Inkscape and examined the number of NODES that CorelDraw had used to form the heart.  There were just four NODES and it looked like this.

So, I added some NODES to see if that helped at all.  I hen saved this one in Inkscape's special format SVG that includes more information about the SVG than the PLAIN version.

Then I decided to use the three different SVG files together in various combinations to test them against each other.  First there was the CorelDraw vs. Inkscape Plain.  Whoaaa!  What happened?  The CorelDraw version seems cleaned up and the Inkscape version looks horrible!

This didn't make any sense, so I decided to compare the CorelDraw version against the new Inkscape version with the higher number of NODES.

Once again, I am shocked!  Now the CorelDraw version appears to be PERFECT and while the Inkscape formatted SVG was better, it didn't match the CorelDraw shape.  Now, I am REALLY confused.  But, my motto is "When in doubt, do more!"  So, I decided to put all three versions to the test.

The results were still puzzling until I realized that each of these looked like they were the same size.  But, they were not.  Each time I had manually resized each of them in eCraftShop Pro.  So, each of them was a slightly different size.  So, I tried one more test.

I removed the Inkscape versions an then copy and pasted the CorelDraw version two more times, changing the size each time.  As you can see, the SIZE of an SVG shape makes a difference in how accurately it will be cut or drawn in the current version of eCraftShop Pro.  This is why we saw a horrendous drawing when I first tried the CorelDraw version and then saw a perfectly clean rendering from that very same file in other tests.

So, if you are having problems with alignment or smooth path issues, try resizing the shape just slightly and see if it improves.  Obviously, this will have to be fixed in future versions of the software; but, for now we might be successul with problem shapes simply by tweaking the size a bit.

 Now, about Ruthie's Penquin.  When I first attempted to render the penquin two of the paths in the SVG would fail and halt the process.  In order to debud this file, I first moved all the PATHS around in Inkscape so that I could more easily see how each individual PATH printed.

 It turned out that the offending PATHS were the Iris of his left eye and the white front piece.  Looking at the code, it was impossible to see why it failed. The code looked perfectly OK and it rendered on the eCraftShop Pro virtual mat just fine.  But, they hung up the machine.  I replaced those two PATHS by copying one of the working eyes and resizing it.  Once I'd found and fixed the bad PATHS, I recombined them.

Now, this would NOT be a valid layout to CUT as you see it below,  But, it WAS useful to see how the eCraft and/or the eCraftSho Pro software thinks.  Consider how the reconstituted and combined penguin was drawn.

The first thing to note is that there is a circle (GREEN ARROW) at the top of one eye that the eCraft seemingly created out of thin air.  Rather than the deliberate stepping kind of cut, it zipped around smoothly to make that circle.  The second thing to notice is that the eCraft or eCraftShop Pro does NOT always select individual PATHS to cut.  It seems to combine the PATHS and then try to figure out how the COMBINED PATHS shoul be rendered.  Notice the the area at the bottom of one eye is disconnected from both the body and the eye. (BLUE ARROW)  And, in that same area, notice the little drop down just over the beak.  The PATH of the 'White' part of a penquin seems to be connected and rendered with the eye as one drawing.

The feet and body overlap (RED ARROW) is handled in a VERY interesting way.  When the foot was drawn, the pen created a little indentation or dip that corresponded with the body's PATH at the point.  And, then, when the body was drawn, the pen went UP to follow along the top of the foot that overlapped the body.  In other words, the foot wasn't rendered as the foot.  And, the body wasn't rendered as the body along.  Each of the lines that the pen drew contained elemonts of TWO different paths.

Obviously, this would NOT have cut well.  But, it was a lot of fun trying to figure out how the eCraft handles PATHS.  And, in particular, paths that intersect.  I don't know how interesting this has been to you; but, I hope there was something helpful that you were able to glean from my curiosity.

By the way, I believe that the misalignment between the beginning and ending points that shows up in larger paths may be due to mathematical rounding errors in the software.  It may be that the developers are not using enough decimal places in the conversion of the SVG paths to the rendering engine.  The SVG files seem to prefer at least 5 decimal places.  But, there is also the reality that rounding errors are common in application software.

SVG Import Examination

There are two operations that must be completed successfully before the eCraftShop Pro software can be said to successfully deal with SVG files.

Australian Thomas Tweedie read about the research we were doing with cutting SVG files.  All of them had been created in Inkscape.  So, he sent me an SVG that was created in Adobe Illustrator. This was the starting point for the file we are going to be examining in this article.

I'm a programmer by profession, so I am as interested in the INSIDE of an SVG file as I am the shape it defines.  After all, eCraftShop Pro can only recreate that shape by reading the code inside the SVG file we give it.  The nice thing about this file is that while the shape is very conplex, the code within it is not.  The entire shape is actually many small shapes and so the code consists of a series of small PATH definitions.

The code that is produced in applications like Inkscape and Illustrator is pretty ugly.  They assume that no one is going to ever look at it.  So, to use the file as a workable test file, I first organized the code into a form that was much more readable.  The next step is to suck the code up and put each individual shape into a memo field of a database program so that I can use a checkbox to include that shape or exclude it on a newly written file.  In this way, I hope to identify shapes that fail more easily so that I can compare the way the code is written between PATHS that work and PATHS that don't work.  But, that comes later.

First we need to examine how well eCraftShop Pro imports a complex SVG.  And, the best way to determine that is to compare the image that comes up on the eCraftShop Pro virtual mat with the image that Inkscape displays.  So, here is our comparison.

Click on Image for full Size Comparison

In the above image, we have the inkscape image on the top and the eCraftShop Pro image on the bottom.  The blue lines point out differences that may actually cause potential problems when the shape is cut.  My conclusion from this is that work still needs to be done in the SVG Import functionality before we even get to the cutting functionality.

This may account for the fact that I am seeing a misalignment between the starting and finishing cut lines in SVGs that otherwise cut successfully.

The next step, of course is to step through adding each element to a computer generated SVG that writes out selected PATHS until we find one that causes eCraftShop Pro to fail to cut properly.  We've already spotted some potential problem shapes, so it's natural to expect that we will find one.  This process will also allow us to identify, for the eCraftShop Pro developers, those PATHS that did not import correctly.  Each path has an ID number and we'll use that ID to communicate what we find to Craftwell.  

I can tell you, from experience at Astrocade, the videogame manufacturer, that engaged users are invaluable to the software development and testing process.  We had a very close relationship with several active user groups in Michigan and Illinois.  And, though that has been almost 30 years ago, I still remember each one and how helpful they were to our company in debugging design and implementation issues with our games. 

I'm hoping that Craftwell comes to realize that in a big way.  And, quite frankly, I firmly believe that some of the recent issues we've seen with the software roll-out would have been uncovered and fixed long ago had they established an active OUTSIDE beta test program for the software as they did for the hardware.  Rest assured that I am actively urging them to use some of you in this role in the future.

HELPFUL HINT - Use the PEN Rather Than the Blade to First Test Complex SVGs

When testing an SVG file it is helpful to first use the PEN instead of of the Blade.  It is easier to follow the order in which the various PATHS are cut and you can use the same piece of paper over and over again as you work. 

To do this simply select the entire shape that is imported into eCraftShop Pro and select the PEN RADIO BUTTON.   The shape will turn a different color.

Going Forward with the Software

My personal opinion about the software is that the basic design we see in the product before us is not up to the level of bearing the 'Pro' label.  Not even close.

But, that is OK.

Those of us that have the current product will ultimately end up having a real Pro product.  And, the current product, that we now have, will end up being quite useful in a very short period of time.  Once it's cleaned up, it would be great 'Lite' product to be included in the box as long as they fix and keep the ability to bring in SVGs.  I can be content with using a 'Lite" version until the real Pro product becomes a reality.

But, to become a true "Pro" product, a lot more functionality will have to be envisioned and implemented.  It's hard to tell from this product whether a real "Pro" vision exists.  And, that is where we, the owners of eCraft cutters come in.  We have a lot of work to do if we are to ensure that there is a vision for a true Pro product that beats anything else out there, including Make the Cut, Sure Cuts Alot and Funtime. And, it is not work simply for Craftwell's benefit.  It is work for OUR benefit.

Yes, communicating our needs and encouraging Craftwell to expand its vision for the software to support the eCraft WILL help Craftwell's bottom line.  But, in the long run it will help US produce the kinds of products and projects that we have envisioned for ourselves as eCraft users.

The first step is to find and communicate the bugs in this product as it has been designed.  There are many.  But, bugs can be exterminated one-by-one and they will be.  The order in which they are attacked is important and that is why we must find a way to communicate the order we hope the fixes will be done as well as what the bugs are.  And, this requires some organization that isn't all that easy to accomplish without a dedicated web site.  I'm hoping that Craftwell will eventually set up a system for bug reports that includes some sort of triage methodology that brings the developers of the software closer to the people for whom they are writing the software.  More on this later in this post.

Among the many things I've done in my life, is that I was in the TV news business, with White House correspondent Forrest Boyd, out of the National Press Club Building in Washington, DC prior to getting into the video game and computer fields.  So, I naturally have a nosey streak. It's interesting what you can find if you snoop around.  :)

For instance, if you look in the CraftShop.exe.config file in the directory where eCraftShop.exe is installed you will find this line.

endpoint address="http://stage.digitalavenues.com/craftshopweb/CraftShopService.asmx"

This reveals the name of the company that is responsible for developing eCraftShop Pro for Craftwell.  This company is in India.  As you can see, their web site is http://www.digitalavenues.com and it is well worth exploring.  It appears to be a company with a successful track record.  But, they also seem to be quite large and quite broad in the service they provide.  That is a two-edge sword.  On the one hand, this made Digital Avenues a good choice for Craftwell because they clearly have the expertise to deliver quality software.  On the other, it hints that there could be too many layers between the end user and the developers.  And, that is never good.

You see, while eCraft is paying the development bill, we, ultimately, provide the income that covers those costs.  And, while nominally eCraft is setting the standards and the specifications, we, ultimately are the final arbiters of whether those standards and specifications are attractive enough to convince us to buy.  So, like it or not, the REAL customers of Digital Avenues is us.  And, if that is not recognized very early by both Craftwell and Digital Avenues it will end up hurting the end product and it's respect in the marketplace.

The reason why we read about failure after failure of huge government development initiatives is that the honchos of Oracle and other monstrous IT companies talk the to the honchos at the IRS and other government agencies.  The honchos are interested in reports and management tools.  The end user is only interested in how easy it is to use and whether it makes his job easier.  These different goals are generally at odds with each other and the systems go unused, crushed under their own weight.

The ONLY way to ensure that software is successful is to make the layers between user and developer as flat as possible.  This is why, for instance, that beta testers from OUTSIDE the company's infrastructure are so important.  Even a company as large as Microsoft recognizes this.

The great news is that no matter what the structure between Craftwell and Digital Avenue, we CAN have an active and vibrant role in the development of eCraftShop Pro by simply making our critiques and requests available in the open forum of the web.  Critiques should be constructive and requests should be clear and communicate WHY a certain feature is desired.  Sooner or later the lowliest developer will stumble across what we have to say and it is THAT person that really has the grunt and grind role of bringing us any and all features.

So, I would like to help make sure that there is the potential for peer-to-peer communication at every level of software design and development for products that support the eCraft.  The best way for us to report bugs, until Craftwell sets up a formal system, is to gather the information in a way that it can be posted on the internet.  And, the best way to do that is to set up email addresses that are based on the various functional areas in the software itself.  If I set these up using the createandcut.com URL the Examples would be:

TextTools@createandcut(dot com)  (Text and Keyboard Tools)

LineTools@createandcut(dot com)  (Line and Curved Line Tools)

ModTools@createandcut(dot com) (Eraser, Flip, Kerning Tools)

ShapeTools@createandcut(dot com) (Shapes and Library Tools)

SVG@createandcut(dot com)  (SVG Issues)

Rendering@createandcut(dot com) (Cutting and Drawing)

Performance@createandcut(dot com) (General Performance Issues)

Interface@createandcut(dot com) (General Interface Issues)

Having separate email areas allows us to set up individual passwords so that a volunteer can be assigned the task of collecting a particular area's submissions so that the weight is distributed among owners.  It's just an idea for now.  So, I need to know what YOU think of it.  The submissions would be placed in either a single post or multiple functional posts that would continually be updated for the Craftwell and Digital Avenues staff should they want to see what you are saying directly.

So, let me know what you think.

SVG Mystery Breakthrough - Use PATHS not OBJECTS

It was an international effort; but, I believe we have found a work-around that allows you to import and cut SVG files as long as you have the free Inkscape or other program capable of editing SVG files.

First I want to thank the people that provided the input that resulted in finding this temporary solution.  Each of these people contributed shapes, testing and/or ideas that resulted in this discovery.  As I said, it truly was an international effort! 

Ruthie Gedalovitch - UK
Denise O'Connor - USA
Tina Mac Queen-Ladoucuer - Canada
Thomas Tweedie - Australia

Denise, I believe, was the first person that was able to get an SVG file to cut, so this let us know that it could be done.  But, the rest of us were having no such luck.  Ruthie then followed up with a Flower that she was able to cut correctly.  So, that encouraged us to dig deeper.  Thomas Tweedie still doesn't have his eCraft as yet.  But, what he DOES have is a great analytical mind and Adobe Illustrator, so he was able to create a test file that contributed to the effort and to dig deep inside my files to provide some insight.

But, Tina provided the file that broke this thing wide open.  I had a very simple file with very few commands that threw the eCraft each and every time I ran it.  But, Tina's file was big and complex.  Yet, it cut perfectly.  This led me to explore the underlying differences and what I discovered was that my file made use of an OBJECT to create the circle and Tina's file made use of a PATH to define her scalloped circle.

So, this prompted me to convert my Circle OBJECT into a PATH using Inkscape and importing the modified file into eCraftShop Pro.  And, BINGO!  Success!  Subsequent tests of building SVG files shows that SOME objects, like a box will work; but, other objects, like the circle will not work.  But, all PATHS, so far, seem to work.

Here is the SVG text for the file that does NOT work.  Notice that there is no section called 'path'.  Instead, the circle is defined as an object with an X and Y location and radius. 

Now, here is a view of the same basic file where the circle OBJECT was turned into a PATH.  Notice that the circle now has a beginning and end with NODES defined along the path to define its shape.

 Click Image to see full size

 While you can see that Inkscape made a very compact file into a very verbose file, that is not where the reasl differences lie.  The code at the very bottom of the example is the real meat of the find.  Notice that you can no longer find a Circle Object in this code.  Instead, at the very bottom, you find a PATH with a series of NODES that defines points along the path that draw the same circle we had before.

Apparently, eCraftShop Pro is able to decypher the circle as long as it's a path.  But, has trouble if the source SVG code defines the circle as an object.  So, our workaround, until Craftwell can deliver a patch that fixes this issue, is that if we try to import an SVG and it fails, we can bring that file into Inkscape and covert any offending objects into Paths and try it again.

If you do not have Inkscape, I would be happy to temporarily try to convert offending SVG files while we wait for a fix from Craftwell.  Just email them to me;  tmeeks(at)createandcut.com

We may find other reasons why an SVG file might not cut correctly.  But, at least we've identified one cause.  I hope this is helpful to you and I'm certainly hopeful that it is consistent as my limited tests have been.

An SVG I Have Yet to Get to Fail

TinaScrapbooking, from the eCraft_Crafters Yahoo group has uploaded an SVG to the files section for the group that I have tested and have yet to get it to fail.  It looks like this when imported into eCraftShop Pro.

The file itself is quite complex.  And, that this is puzzling thing.  The Inkscape version was 0.46 and that may be a factor.  But, no matter what I tried... multiples...

And, even resizing and warping!  I could not get her SVG file to fail.

One thing is clear when you start digging in the SVG file format.  For a "standard", there sure seem to be a lot of variations exhibited from file to file! 

At any rate, thank you, Tina for finding or creating a file that consistently works.  This, along with a file that consistently does NOT work, should help the developers a LOT!

Again, this file can be found in the Files Section of the eCraft_Crafters Yahoo Group.  It's called Scallop Circle.SVG

A Consistent SVG Test File and .CRW

The best way to test software is to minimize it down to the barest essentials to remove the number of variables.

An SVG file is very much like the HTML that draws this page in your browser.  It's just a special form of XML code.  Here is a screen capture of a very simple SVG file that creates a circle and a triangle.

As you can see, it is a very small bit of code.  It says, make a circle with a radius of 60.  The X and Y locations aren't important since we will be moving the file inside the virtual mat area.  And, it also says make a triangle by creating 3 lines connecting from point to point.  The last points, apparently, are understood to go back to the starting set of points to close the path.

You cannot get an SVG file much simpler than this.  So, it should make for an excellent file for testing importing and cutting SVG images.  You can even use a text editor to create the file by simply typing what you see above.  Unfortunately, the blog software tries to run the code if I give you the text itself.  So, I had to display it as an image.

Here is how Inkscape sees this file.

And, here is how it is seen in eCraftShop Prom which is exactly as it should see it. 

So, from a simple visual perspective, it appears that there is no problem IMPORTING a simple SVG.  So, let's take it to the next step to get a consistent behavior from my eCraft.  In a perfect world all of our machines would behave the same with the following setup.  But, we're not in a perfect world and that is why we need to try this in many machines.  Here is the layout.

 I imported the SVG file and then did a copy and paste to get three identical shapes in a row.  Then I cut it with this result.

As you can see, I can repeat the attempt to print over and over and I will always get the same result.  It doesn't matter if I turn off the eCraft and back on so that it is the first thing cut or if I leave the eCraft on between cuts.  It's always consistent.

Now, the real test is to see if your results are the same as mine.  I'm going to put both the SVG and the .CRW files up on the eCraft_Crafters Yahoo group File Upload Section so that you can download the SVG report back on how your system behaves.
 
The  SVG file is called MinimalSVG.SVG and the eCraft project with three sets of the SVG is called MinimalSVG.CRW.

It will be interesting to see how various systems behave with this bare minimum SVG file.

UPDATE #1: Thomas Tweedie's Adobe Illustrator (CS5) File.

Australian Thomas Tweedie sent me a file, using the same shapes, that was created in Adobe Illustrator.  Testing his file, the eCraft reacted COMPLETELY differently, yet THE SAME.  With Thomas' file, the eCraft began the cut with the circle's rather than the triangles (the different) and failed consistently exactly 50% into the first circle (The Same).  Thank you Thomas!  I'll be working with him to try to see how my original file that has been imported and saved in Adobe Illustrator behaves.  What is important for now is that in both cases the failure occurs at 50% of the first circle... a place where one would expect a tab or, possibly, a node in the path.

A personal note.  I am really impressed by the observations and help that I've received from Australian's interested in the eCraft!  And, they don't even have machine's as yet!!   Can you imagine how much help they are going to be to all of us when they actually GET a machine???  Hurry and ship to Australia, Craftwell! 

UPDATE #2: Paths vs. Objects in the SVG Behave Differently

Turning to using a simple SVG file has turned out to be a useful strategy.  For instance, I brought the SVG into Inkscape and converted the circle OBJECT into a PATH.  (The Scallop was a PATH.)  And, it cut the entire circle.  However, it continued beyond 360 degrees and then stuttered.  At least there was an identifiable change in behavior.  And, that is what we are looking for as we experiment.  I'll continue to modify and experiment with the file to see if I can get it to stop at 360 degrees and not reach the stuttering point.

If you have a cut that is failing and you have Inkscape, try seeing if converting the OBJECT to a PATH is any more successful.