AutoVectors Bridge

The small program that lets Studio's Send to plotter button reach the cutter connected to your Windows PC.

Windows 10 / 11 (64-bit) · no admin needed · version 0.2.0 · 10.7 MB (10,709,081 bytes)
SHA-256 cf8aa4b52a72097dd5093849dc1a88a60648787b4b8ac1deb5174f14e9615058 · not code-signed

Double-click the downloaded file. A small setup window opens: it says what the bridge is, which plotter it can see right now, and where it will install (a folder in your own Windows profile — no administrator password). Press Install; the window then says Installed. and the bridge sits in the system tray, next to the clock. Start Menu → AutoVectors Bridge opens its status window; Settings › Apps › AutoVectors Bridge › Uninstall removes it.
This build is not code-signed. On a PC where it has not run before, Windows 10 and 11 show a blue box titled Windows protected your PC the first time you start it. Click More info in that box; it then shows App: AutoVectorsBridge-0.2.0.exe and Publisher: Unknown publisher — "unknown" is accurate, nothing has been signed — and a Run anyway button. Before you press it, check the file: in PowerShell, Get-FileHash AutoVectorsBridge-0.2.0.exe must print exactly the SHA-256 above. For an unsigned file that comparison is the only check there is, and it is exact. Your browser may ask the same question when it saves the download; keeping the file is the same decision.

Why Windows warns

Every file a browser saves is tagged as having come from the internet (Windows calls the tag the "mark of the web"). The first time such a file is run, Microsoft Defender SmartScreen asks two things: is it signed by a publisher Windows knows, and have enough PCs already run this exact file without trouble? A file that is new and unsigned fails both, so the box appears — on each PC the file is downloaded to, once per file. A copy that never went through a browser carries no tag and is not asked, which is why a build made on the same PC starts silently. A signature puts a publisher name in the box and lets a new version inherit the trust the previous one earned; what removes the box is a history of clean downloads, which every new program has to earn.

What it is

A web page cannot talk to a USB plotter. The bridge is a small program in your system tray that can. It runs only on your computer, waits for Studio, and passes a job through to the plotter — the same bytes you would get from the Download button, unchanged.

What it does

Finds the plotters on this PC: USB cutters (Graphtec CE / FC and any USB printer-class plotter), Windows printer queues, and COM ports.
Asks you once, in its own window, whether studio.autovectors.com may use them. You can revoke that any time from the tray menu.
Sends the job Studio hands it, shows the progress in its tray icon with a Stop item in the tray menu while it does, and closes the plotter the moment it is done.
Answers Studio's question "how wide is the material loaded right now?" when the plotter can say (Graphtec in HP-GL mode does).
Starts with Windows only if the box in the setup window stays ticked (it is, by default); the tray menu has the same switch. To remove it: Windows Settings › Apps › AutoVectors Bridge › Uninstall. That removes the program, its Start Menu entry and the start-with-Windows setting; its folder %LOCALAPPDATA%\AutoVectors\Bridge (log, settings and the list of sites you allowed) is kept for you to delete. Nothing else is written anywhere.

What it never does

It never connects to the internet — no update check, no telemetry, no crash reports.
It never sends a byte to a plotter without a job you started from Studio, on a site you allowed.
It never changes, reorders or "fixes" a job. It refuses what it cannot check; it does not rewrite.
It never installs a driver, creates a printer, runs as a service, or needs administrator rights.
It never accepts a file path, a network address or a command from a web page.

Which plotters

Verified on a Graphtec CE7000 over USB, in HP-GL mode (the panel's COMMAND setting; Cutting Master uses GP-GL, so check it after using that). Any other USB printer-class cutter, and any cutter that exists as a Windows printer, is sent the same HPGL — whether the driver passes it through unchanged is what the 100 mm test square Studio cuts first will tell you. Silhouette, Cricut and Brother ScanNCut machines only accept their maker's software and are refused by name.

Do I need it?

Only for a plotter on USB or a Windows printer queue. A cutter on a COM / serial port works from Chrome and Edge with nothing installed — choose My plotter is on a COM / serial port in Studio's Export panel. And the Download button keeps working exactly as it does today; the bridge is optional, always.