Originally Posted by woodman08  After I purchase a cnc router I'm confused what software i will need.I want to be able to scan images and have the cnc cut them out>I use corel draw for a lot of my graphics now.
Secondly can the cnc be set up to scan an object 3 dimension then reproduce it ,what do i need here .
Also whats a good easier to get around cad program as the autocads are very user unfriendly. |
It's your money but.......if it were mine I would first put my wallet back in my pocket and be able to define what it is I want to cut. No matter what you see in the marketing hype you cannot scan a picture and have the CNC cut anything you would be proud of. Oh, you can scan a B&W line drawing and do some cutting but you may have to spend hours making the photo into a high contrast B&W and more time cleaning up the scan.
If you already use CorelDraw you know it works in vectors (which is the way machines cut) and not in bitmaps. Take one of your photos and scan and autotrace it in Corel Trace. Look at it up close on the screen. See all the jagged lines and hundreds of tiny closed objects? Now blow that up to a size to cut, and remember the machine will faithfully try to follow every little line and direction change. Give it ragged junk and it will give it back to you amplified while shaking like a wet Retriever.
If it were as easy as scanning a photo and having it cut the piece, every garage in American would have one!
3 dimensional scanning is a complex subject. Probing an object to build a "point cloud" is not as expensive but it's slow and you still have to turn the point cloud into a 3D object using fairly expensive software THEN turn it into a 3D toolpath with 3D CAM.
You need to do more reading and study before you buy a table. If you don't know the answer already to the questions you posted then you are ripe for being taken advantage of.
First think about cutting with 2.5D which is 90% of most CNC actions. The cost for software and the learning curve are much lower than full 3D. It can take months; maybe years, to get good and fast at full 3D design and cutting.
We all dream about having a machine you dump scraps into on one end and you show it a picture of what you want, and it spits out one (or more) at the other end, all shiny and finished.
Dirty Little Secret: It's not easy. Sometimes the artwork end and getting a usable toolpath is harder than building the machine.
For wood carving look at VCarve Pro. Not true 3D but fancy for 2.5D. If you want to cut out parts for furniture then thats totally different. There is existing 3D "clipart" (See
www.vectorart3D.com) that can be used to do some pretty impressive stuff and 3D Cut from the same company as VCarve Pro will let you carve the files.
Before you plop down the big bucks make sure the company you buy it from can support your goals. If they just sell you a table and walk off you might be stuck with a system that won't/can't do what you want.
SO......define what you want to do. Talk to others that have done it and have the whip marks to prove it, and use their experience to first pick your software approach and then find a table that works well with that choice and that you can afford to fix 3 years from now when it breaks.
TOM CAUDLE
www.CandCNC.com 
10-18-2007, 09:41 PM
Similar Threads 
Linear Mode
