PhotoVCarve

[Mike Wenman]

Think I already mentioned that I did go ahead and purchase PCV and attempted to put it to use today.

I took a quick photo of my '58 chevy and imported it into the program and toyed around with it and came up with a suitable looking photo in the program and saved the resulting gcode for it.

When I ran the actual code using the 1/4" dia 60deg vcarve bit I had selected in the program and attempting to cut to -0.15" in depth, the finished results were absolutely horrendous.

I believe that my problem definitely lies in my Z-Axis, but not sure how to correct this. I did notice in Mach3 that the Z DRO was changing based on the height codes it received, but I never did notice that the machine depth varied. I am using a 1/2-10 5 turn 2 start lead screw with 1/8 microstepping selected on the driver. (8000 steps per in mach motor tuning)

anyway, here are a screen shot of the PVC software screen and the result which is a 3/4" thick piece of oak with some stain put in the cut area.

Before running the cut, I leveled the wood to be cut with a surfacing cut so it would be nice and parallel to the system.

[Jerome Stanek]

You can post on the vectric forum and will most likely get an answer. If someone doesn't step in Tony or Brian normally try to set you straight.

[james mcgrew]

i pm'ed the vectric forum address there are hundreds more thier that are passionate about this stuff they can help. it took me a bit to get it and it is not my strongest suit.

jim

[Steve Peterson]

I tried cutting a few pictures using Vcarve. I didn't really care for the ones where the entire picture was carved over. It might work for a lithopane where a clear plastic is lit from the back or a semi-opaque material is lit from the back.

My best results were when I set the height so that only the dark lines actually cut into the wood.

You might be able to touch up your first attempt by taking really light passes through a surface planer to remove the high spots so the deeper spots will show better contrast.

I think that I also pre-processed the file using a photo editor to improve the contract so the light areas were completely white. Then Vcarve left them alone.

One other thing you can try is to tell Mach3 to exagerate the Z-axis movement. This way the contrast will be heightened.

Steve

[Michael Schwartz]

I know RhinoCam is supposed to be pretty good, and as i recall it costs about the same, but that's on top of the cost of Rhino 3D itself.

3D Nurbs based modeling is a whole new ball game. Parametric based 3D modeling as well is more challenging than 2D cad. Both have there advantages, and you can easily end up on a slippery slope of software/plug ins to put together a tool kit.

Rhino Cam is essentially an integrated version of Visual Mill from my understanding. Visual Mills most notable advantage over Aspires CAM components would be that with Visual mill combined with the necessary modules would allow you to create toolpaths in true 3D for a 4th axis.

I am sure there are other advantages of visual mill as well that somebody with experience could note.

Aspire is a very affordable option for strict 3 axis work and if you do have an indexer (4th axis), current versions of Aspire and V-Carve pro will let you wrap a file around a cylinder. This is not the same however as 3 dimensional machining on a fourth axis. Take a look at Guy Matthew's work to see some examples of 3 dimensional work on an indexer.

Art Cam seems to be popular and from my understanding it is of a similar nature to Aspire. However Art Cam is pricy to say the least. I can't say much about it but maybe somebody else will.

V-Carve Pro aka Partworks is cheap, easy to learn, and quite capable within the realm of 2.5d work. Part of the reason I have not bought Aspire yet is I have been able to accomplish every job I have had so far with V-Carve Pro. I believe you get a discount if you decide to purchase Aspire later on.

On the flip side if your looking for a 3D based NURBS modeling program on the cheap, check out Blender which is free.

I realize this is a bit of a tangent so I am sorry if this is a bit off from the original topic of the thread.

[Mike Wenman]

Thanks for the PM James. I had also posted the question on the Vectric Forum on the Zone and did get a possible fix..atleast a step to take.

That was to decrease my Acceleration and Velocity in Mach Motor Tuning by atleast half of what I have in there now and run it again. If that doesn't help, cut it in half again.

Now this sounds like a good idea. It does make sense that with the highter Velocity, Acceleration and coupled with the feed rate, the next Z command has come and gone before the system has time to actually execute that command.

I did have a smaller 20" x 40" table that I had very limited success with when using the Trial version of the program although other inherant system problems didn't allow much success.

Anyway.. tomorrow is another day of testing..will see how it goes.

[Mike Wenman]

Made a few adjustments and ran another test cut from a black and white photo of my wife from many many years ago.

Cut this image in .75 MDF using a 1/4" dia 60 deg centurion v-bit at 50 ipm feed rate at a depth of 0.05"

Think I may be onto something now.

[james mcgrew]

well on your way!!

jim

[Bryan Cowan]

Made a few adjustments and ran another test cut from a black and white photo of my wife from many many years ago.

Cut this image in .75 MDF using a 1/4" dia 60 deg centurion v-bit at 50 ipm feed rate at a depth of 0.05"

Think I may be onto something now.

Keep up the good work and continue posting your progress!

[George Brown]

Made a few adjustments and ran another test cut from a black and white photo of my wife from many many years ago.

Cut this image in .75 MDF using a 1/4" dia 60 deg centurion v-bit at 50 ipm feed rate at a depth of 0.05"

Think I may be onto something now.

Looks really nice.

Did you paint the mdf black before cutting it?

[Mike Wenman]

Looks really nice.

Did you paint the mdf black before cutting it?

No I didn't. I had some sanding sealer left over from another project I had turned on my lathe and thought I would give that a try so I wiped it on the face of the MDF first and let it dry. Cut the image, then used the sanding sealer again over what was cut. I ran out of time and had to leave for work, but my intent after using the sealer on the cut was to make a 2nd pass on it, then use stain.

[Nathan Palenski]

Can anyone compare photo vcarve to image2gcode? I've used I2G since its free with a pretty good amount of success but I'm about to upgrade my cut2D and I dont know if I should bother with photo vcarve.

I have heard a pretty good amount of issues with the PVC, especially when people dont convert the image to a 2 bit color pallet or run it through either painting or stained glass filters.

It wasnt exactly straight forward when I used I2G though. I used a wingding that I blew up to size 150 or so, screenshotted it and used inkscape to create windows vector file. I2G ate that and kicked out gcode for a single pass using a generic V bit. I'm pretty sure you can define your own bits but I havent done it and am not sure how easy it will be.

[james mcgrew]

the demo for pvc is fully functioning and without cost, let us know which works well!!

jim