:drowning:Could somebody please help me with calculating a toolpath for a Bobart embossed image? I have v23 and am having a very hard time creating a toolpath of an image of a dog's head. I can't seem to get it to put out anything that even resembles the picture. I was planning on using a 1/4 inch 90 degree V-bit but cannot seem to get that to work either. I was planning on using "mill 3 axis V-carve" but it will not let me select the geometry for this. The only choices that let me select the geometry are "mill 3 axis-z level rough and z level finish". These both just give me endmills. I have changed the endmill diameter several times (all the way down to 0.001 inch diameter) and it still will not do what I'm looking for.I will post the image file below if somebody feels like a challenge. I also have it saved as a bbcd file but do not know how to upload it in that format. I am trying to carve this picture .18 inches deep or so into a piece of wood. Also, When I emboss the picture a square appears around it. I would also like to remove this square and have just the picture engraved.

Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Jeff

The Slice toolpaths are the ones you want for this. Planar, Radial, Spiral.... We just visualize what would look best with a particular piece. Like for a forest, where many things are linear, we would use Planar and set the direction to match the geometry. Your face there may look best with a radial, Something that centers the face and radiates out.

The V Carve toolpath works on Fonts.

The Z Level paths I dont think you want here.

To post your Bccd file you can zip it by right clicking it and choose "Send To" "Compressed Zip Archive".

The depths will depend on the size of the overall Cut wood picture. To get rid of the "Picture Edge", the size versus desired placment needs to be adjusted so you can use a "Boundry" to eliminate the area of edge emboss from the toolpath generated.

Thanks Burrman, I'll try these tomorrow. I've had enough Bobcad for one day. Fifteen straight hours on 2 pictures and have gotten nowhere. Want a good deal on Bobcad v23?

I will load the saved bbcd file if anybody out there would like to give it a try. Thanks again, Jeff

Hey jeff,
Hang in there. doing these types of files is not easy. It only gets better from here. Doing artwork takes a bit of trial and error to figure out. Seems every picture is unique!

Also, do you have a high res photo of that dog face? If so can you post it here?

I don't have a hi rez pic. I,ve got the cad part pretty well figured out. I'm just having a lot of trouble working with bobart. Are there any training videos out there for bobart. I can not even find the screen that is shown for bobart on bobcads site under tutorials. Is this a different version or something? It says Bobart supports 3 bit types, flat, balled and veed. I cannot find this either. Please help if you know how to find these items.

Thanks again, Jeff

Hi Jeff,
I noticed you posted in the BobCad Forum also and I'll finish answering you there. I'll create some video also, then you can get specific questions from that if you wan to go further.

All the tooling is done from the CAM Tab. The BobArt tab is for getting the image and setting up the emboss or extracting the geometry. Once you have the emboss surface, you switch to the cam tab and setup the operation (One of the slice ones, not z level) then do the toolpath.

Again, I'll post a short vid on the other post you made.

Burr

Ransco.

The dog image you are working with is less than an inch! You might want to work with images that are a little bit bigger.

Not to mention the steps you are trying to take are not the right steps.

3D image machining with BobART.

Click BobART Tab

Rt Click on images and load your picture. ( you do this so the software will know the stock size automatic )

Rt Click on Emboss model

Choose Emboss from image.

Edit your setting for how deep or up you want to go.

( most of the time you are only embossing .100 + or - if you try for more than that the image gets distorted)

Then you will regenerate

What this does is create a model that you can then lay 3D tool path down on.

http://i564.photobucket.com/albums/ss86/damjuice/mkbr1.jpg

http://i564.photobucket.com/albums/ss86/damjuice/mkbr2.jpg

http://i564.photobucket.com/albums/ss86/damjuice/mkbr3.jpg

http://i564.photobucket.com/albums/ss86/damjuice/mkbr4.jpg


BobART works on gray scale and this image is very light. Gray scale being you set a value lets say .1 from dark to light and the gray scale between is where the software goes up and down from 0 to .1.

Now you can add additional embosses to puff the shape up, that's what I did in blue

Allen123, Actually the dog picture is 4" square in my drawing, But I do beleive I could have started with something a little simpler than this image (very close colors). When I "emboss from image" it comes in at 4" by 3.7". Other than that, it looks like I,m using the same steps as you. I would like to know how you got the border line around the pic so it won't machine the entire square. Did you draw it using "spline interpolated" or is there a better way? Also, the additional emboss. Did you just change the z value? Thanks for the reply, Jeff


Burrman, Yes, I noticed your name there as well. I just registered over there a few hours ago. I will check back with you later over there. I think I,ve (along with glen from Bobcad) well, (mostly Glen from Bobcad) figured out what the other pic I was working on needed. A bit of cleanup before embossing. I tried the other pic with "slice radial" and it did go much better. Looking forward to the video also. Thanks again, Jeff

Sounds good Jeff!

I may hold off on any vid for a bit. I dont wan to confuse things and it sounds like Glen has you going! I was just going to post a basic BobArt demo as I recognised you were just in need to see the "proceedure" to use to do an emboss.

The rest as you have seen others is just learning how to get a good result. Getting good at it is just a personal amount of practice. Every picture is different in its own way so nobody could really tell you, "Use these settings" and have it work for all pictures.

Go with what you got from glen for a bit then come back if you have any specifics that others may be able to help with.

Good luck!

Your Right, I didn't really follow your whole thread. So sorry about that.

You have a BobCAD file up here, but is there any way you can post the image file.

What I was working on was the thumb nail that was in the thread.

BTW I don't think you can call a V cutter of any of the slice tool paths. I think you'll need to trick the system or lie about your cutter in order for it to work.


You know call it a ball but run a v cutter.

Thanks again guys, I'll try to post the image again. Also, I have another question, I have a piture of a seashell which I drew last night. When I emboss it the emboss looks like a checkerboard pattern. Any Idea why?

I beleive the images are auto compressed when I upload them here. Allen, how did you import the pics (save in what format)?
Thanks, Jeff

One thing that I would try that should help is doing a regular emboss along with the image emboss

When you do this to get the .18 depth that you want. Via a radius or ellipse subtracted.

Then the image goes on top or cut out of the regular emboss to add the detail that you want.


http://i564.photobucket.com/albums/ss86/damjuice/mkBr5.jpg


I used a slice radial because you can use a boundary to contain the tool path.


http://i564.photobucket.com/albums/ss86/damjuice/mkbr6.jpg

Then I tried a planner rough a finish

http://i564.photobucket.com/albums/ss86/damjuice/mkbr7.jpg

Not really able to use the images you posted.

But I can tell you why you got the checker board.

The wire frame you used intersected with each other and cause the pattern to skip areas. If you clean up the wire frame you'll get it.

Thanks Allen, Any ideas on the checker board emboss? How do you get this type of pics uploaded here?
Jeff

I did not use a wireframe at all. I imported the image to use as a template, used continuous line, for the outside perimeter, used sketch lines for the interior, used distort lines for the shape, used trim extend to clean it up, then I deleted the original pic from underneath my drawing. Any other ideas?
Thanks, Jeff

I did not use a wireframe at all. I imported the image to use as a template, used continuous line, for the outside perimeter, used sketch lines for the interior, used distort lines for the shape, used trim extend to clean it up, then I deleted the original pic from underneath my drawing. Any other ideas?
Thanks, Jeff

The lines you used, continuous line ect, that's the wire frame

The steps you took to get the wire frame from the picture are the right steps.

If you just vectorized it, the wire frame would not have come out as nice as it did.

But the way you embosses regular you selected all the geometry / wire frame which you had a out side shape, but also you had some inside detail lines. This is where from what I can tell the problem is.

It's just like if you tired to emboss a group of boxes that were connected. Because the boxed touched you would get the same type of result. Checker board.


http://i564.photobucket.com/albums/ss86/damjuice/mkbr11.jpg

http://i564.photobucket.com/albums/ss86/damjuice/mkbr12.jpg

http://i564.photobucket.com/albums/ss86/damjuice/mkbr13.jpg

With this file I used a sweep emboss on the blue lines to get the cut out. I did have to mess with it a bit to get the edges to come out right.

http://i564.photobucket.com/albums/ss86/damjuice/mkbr14.jpg



Can you post the BCC file so I can check it out myself?

Sure here it is. Can you post your completed one so I can compare the settings used through edit. How do you post these pics? are they bbcd files?
Thanks again, Jeff

Jeff,

I just create a screen shot and open in paint and upload to photo bucket. Then I can just insert them with the image icon where you write your posts.

I retried it selecting the outside lines as geometry, used swept emboss, then selected just the inner lines and used emboss regular and still get the checkerboard effect in the center. How did you get this to work?
Thanks, Jeff

http://i564.photobucket.com/albums/ss86/damjuice/mkskin15.jpg


I am really not sure how to up load the drawing files. I just post screen shots. So maybe you can help me with that.


Anyway one of the issues I have with BobART is doing lofted type embosses. When the shape goes up and down in Z.

To do this with BobCAD I need to create a surface and then emboss on that surface.


If you look at the other shapes I posted you can see that really the embossed shapes are stacked like legos. On on top of each other, and using a regular emboss is done with simple shapes. line, circle spline ect.

Even the sweep really only lets me sweep a 2D profile. I don't have another drive curve to get the Z change that I want, like in a lofted surfaces.

Anyway, so what you have to do is create a surface. As you can see this file surfaced look really good and it only took one step. I created a center line for the shape. Snapped some points and moved them up and Z created a spline and then did a 3 edge surface.

I could make some adjustments to the spline to get a different shape, but I think this shape is closer to what you are after?

I retried it selecting the outside lines as geometry, used swept emboss, then selected just the inner lines and used emboss regular and still get the checkerboard effect in the center. How did you get this to work?
Thanks, Jeff


The out side shape would be the regular emboss.

Then you would do the inside shape as a sweep with a spline. And you have to set the spline emboss to merge low.

We are getting there. To upload a bbcd file just right click on the icon, send to, zipped folder, then post. Actually, I'm redrawing mine now with less splines to make the toolpath smaller. The one you did first is exactly what I'm trying to do. I would like to load it in and see the setting you used if you can get it to upload. If this does not work I can give you my email and you can send it that way as a bbcd file.
Thanks again,
Jeff

This is the file that I had worked on.

Allen,
How did you fix the outside edges? I duplicated your settings on your pic and also messed with mine. They both look puffy around the edges. What do I need to adjust to get rid of this? I'm very close now thanks to you.
Jeff

You know all I did was play with the setting for the size of the radius for the embossing. Changing it up and down till it went away.

I tried to flatten it a few different ways but didn't come up with what I wanted.

So I just kept adjusting it, then it went away.

Changed radius on the swept emboss? I have the same exact settings as you do for both embosses with the same pic and it looks good exept still puffy around the edges. Also, how do you create a "screenshot" for posting?
Jeff

:cheers:to you Allen, I got it to work:banana:I went into my original drawing and doubled all of the inner lines, then trimmed the outside edge so it is more like a flower with very very close petals, then just used regular emboss and it came out great. Let me know if there is a better or easier way that you are aware of. Also would like to know how you create screenshots for posting please. Woo-Hoo, I,m a happy banana.

Thanks once again, Jeff

I am glad that I could help.


If you want to post the images or screen shots this is what you do.

Hit print screen on your computer, open paint and then past.

What you get is an image of you screen loaded in paint. Then you crop the image and save it.

Next you'll need to use photo bucket or some other image web hosting service.

Once you upload the image then you can use the insert image just like you would in word.