[Tristar500]

I've got an idea I've been kicking around.

I want to carve foam statues (mostly people).

Rather then the typical 3 axis setup I'm thinking of a design layout that has a rotary axis for the y. The Y axis because it is rotary rather then linear so it would allow carving all the way around (think totem pole carving)

I can see this machine being used to copy a statue by fitting the z axis with a touch probe to scan and then simply run the gathered info back with a spindle. The scale could also change with no problems.

So... I've got a machine that can copy stuff but what if wanted to design something in cad and machine it? Y axis runs on polar geometry.

Any relatively cheap programs that can deal with polar geometry?

I've got Bob Cad up to V 23 but I think it's strickly linear xyz.

Any thoughts?