Can someone recommend a reasonably priced engraving package? I am not looking for anything really fancy. I would like to be able to scan some images or favorite pictures and engrave them on various materials with my router.

Cheers

Wintopo has a freeware version of a Raster to Vector converter that should work nicely to create the vectors, then use your favorite cam package to engrave it.

'Rekd

Thanks. I will check it out. I guess you can't beat free!

What would be nice is a $10.00 rebate for d/l'ing freeware! :D

'Rekd

Try this it only does the text but is very handy for engraving and it is free too

http://www.deskam.com/deskengrave.html

I have deskengrave already. I am looking for something that processes images.

Why? A few years back I saw a really neat part that took white plexiglass and engraved a photo onto it. When it was backlite it looked like an old black and white photo. I am trying to reproduce this in a shadowbox

Rebates w/ Freeware!!!

WOO HOO!!:D :D

If you would like me to try and run an image of your choice through the programs I use for comparison purposes I will be happy to help.

For flat engraving I use photoshop, corel and paint. Corel is my standard as it makes everything easy and quick but paint 11 has some new vector features that really make designing engraving plates a snap. I vectorized a million dollar bill in about a days work with Corel.

For dimensional engraving like coins and jewelry I use Gravostyle.
It works off the shadows in the pic to set your depths.

I would be interested to see how the various packages stack up feature to feature on points like this. Send me whatever you want - provided its a clean pic.

How about DESKART ?

Paulried, I think you saw the demo from ArtCam Pro. DelCam was passing this engraving around at shows.

That could be. We have ArtCam at work. However, I saw the part in Salt Lake City when I was visiting a company that at the time represented the scanning system we use. We have a ScanTech laser scanner on a 4 x 8 ft table for scanning customers parts to make molds. It creates HUGE STL files that we convert into G-code and make a new master on a router.

Anyway, the guy who owns the place did this on the side for fun. He built the shadow boxes and sold them at local fairs. You give him a photo and he machined it. Looked nice.

BTW, the scanner is cool. Check it out at Scantech (http://www.scantech.net)

Hi paulried
I just uploaged a program in the ftp unspecsified section that might be what you looking for.It is a free program that I found somewhere on the net. I forget where. It takes a bmp image and makes a gcode. hope this helps.
Dan

I forgot to give the name of the program. it's proflr06.zip. Sorry.
Dan

Thanks for the file. I downloaded it. I also found the website for it.

AMCE Profiler (http://www2.fwi.com/~kimble/scispec/scispec.htm)

Paul... you may also want to take a look at mach1. It will import a bitmap or jpg photo, let you set the specifics (including cutting lighter deeper or darker deeper) and exporting it as gcode. The demo has no limitation on importing/exporting and will do this. There are some photos of some of the results in both wood and stone on the users group site and they look impressive.
-Marc

Are there in shows in the St. Louis or Chicago area this summer where I can look at CAD/CAM and milling machines for Jewelry?

Terry

BobCad v18 can also used for engraving......

Klox