What's the steps ?

[SScnc]

Hey Guys,

I've held off as long as I can on posting this question but after spending many, many hours trying to get it right I have to now ask for some guidance and advice.

My question is: What are the best steps to take to make a complete relief of the medallion below ?

One of the things I've done after drawing it in Corel was to save it as a .BMP and drag and drop it into ArtCam Pro then proceed to color fill the individual parts. The main problem I have is that I want all the lines in the eagle to be V-cut and all the other lines I want to add height to them. The problem there is that when I dbl. click on the black lines and add height, it of course adds height to the lines in the eagle which is the exact opposite of what I need.

How would you guys go about this ?

Thanks for any help,

Steve


The one pictured that I'm doing is 14" x 14" and I'm trying to achieve what you see in the color pic of the wood one.

BTW: Why the heck don't my pics show up on the Zone tonight and most other times they do ???

[SScnc]

Looks like they don't show if they are .BMP so here's .jpg's

[Jay C]

Have you see the tutorial video for the plaque with the Aston Martin? I think that looks a lot like what you want to do. You need a very clean image to work with.

[SScnc]

Hi Jay,

I'll check it out.

My drawing is very clean I think and I can isolate and color fill all parts, it just gets a little confusing on achieving the look I need. ANY advice is much appreciated !

Thanks,

Steve

[Jay C]

[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lszUTq06g40"]YouTube- ‪Creating a 2D sign in ArtCAM Insignia‬‎[/nomedia] is close

http://www.scribd.com/doc/16371530/A...-Pro-Tutorials has the Aston martin tutorial ... thought it was a video but I guess not.

[Jay C]

If you convert the images to vectors, you can create new vector layers. Then move whichever vectors you need to individual layers. I recommend giving each layer a different color.

[SScnc]

Thanks for the help! I finally had time to get back to work on this and have made some progress. I need some more help though, in the pics below you can see the vectors and then as machined simulation. I'm very happy with most of it however I can't figure out how to get the feather lines to machine and show better as well as the lines in the plaque below the eagle.

Is there a way to thicken the vector lines at this point within Artcam or what should I do ? I have one more minor question on this model but I'll take it one step at a time.

Thanks,

SS

[Jay C]

Look at the offset tool. Pick the vector you want to offset (there are usually 3 options, inside, outside and both). If you do "both" you'll want the vector to be the centerline. Hope that helps.

[SScnc]

Jay C, That worked very good, thanks, that definitely helped. I'm used to working with offsets in other SW but hadn't thought about it in ArtCam. I selected "both sides" and "delete original vectors" and now the grooves in the wings and the plaque show up better.

Only problem is when I copy vectors into bitmap, they stair step a lot. Any way to smooth them out ? I can actually live with it as is now but if it can be done better I'd like to try.

Thanks again,

SS

[Jay C]

What end mill bit are you simulating with? If it's a 3D relief, it needs to be a ballnose finish path after a roughing pass with a square end mill. Also, you should change the angle of the finish pass with and rough pass. And last but not least, it's usually a good idea to leave some allowance on the rough pass. This gives the finish path the ability to remove the coarser roughing path tool marks.

[SScnc]

Well I actually haven't done the toolpaths exactly as I want to for machining yet, I have only selected a 50 deg. V bit for simulation in one pass. Right now I just wanted to see if I had the design good for machining. I did it using "3D Machine relief" in the toolpaths tab.

I do plan to do a roughing pass with a 1/4" EM and leaving some allowance then a finish pass with the V bit. That's my plan, please advise if it's wrong. I did not know that I needed to make the finish pass at a different angle than the roughing pass though, thanks for that advice too.

What do you think about the stair stepping problem ?

Here's a pic of just the "Front Relief" view to show more of the design without machining marks...

[Jay C]

It's due to he bit you have chosen. Try a ball end mill and see the difference.