New to DSP, what to expect?

[Baronjutter]

Hi there, I'm involved with some people building a laser cutter and I believe they have decided on the X7 DSP controller card (http://www.lightobject.com/X7-DSP-Contr ... -P940.aspx)

I had a few questions about it and the workflow that would result from using it.

Currently I'm using a Full Spectrum Laser system along with their "retinaengrave" software. My current workflow is that I do all my design work in Vectorworks (architectural cad), export as PDF onto a USB stick, take that stick to the computer hooked up to the laser, open an old copy of corel draw, open the PDF, select the parts I want to cut, then "print" that to Retina Engrave which functions as a printer driver. The vectors/raster are them imported into the software which allows me to set speed/power/passes for the various colours in my vector file along with all the other laser control options, and then hit go and off goes the laser.

Using this controller card and its associated software, what would my workflow look like? We have a lot of people using this laser trained on the current software so are hoping to get something at least vaguely similar.

Thanks for any info!