Reply with QuoteTry this guy. He has software for carving topo maps in wood and he is wanting to sell the rights to it. http://www.peasley.com/
Topographical Map
Hi everyone,
I'm currently trying to produce a toolpath for a scale topographical map I'm working on. I've got the map set up as both a point cloud and as topographical curves. Both sets of data are set at 2mm increments. Anyway, I was wondering what the best way to make a smooth curvature from height level to height level. I've been fighting with surface and solid lofts, and both won't be good solutions. I'm going to be producing a lot of these... any suggestions would be a great help!! Thanks!
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Try this guy. He has software for carving topo maps in wood and he is wanting to sell the rights to it. http://www.peasley.com/
post a dxf of points and what ever else you have and we can take a look.It hard to comment on a surface issue without see surface.
Thanks everyone. Here is a rar of the point cloud and of the actual contours. Both are .dxf
Thanks again!
Last edited by Phunkshun; 08-23-2006 at 01:07 PM. Reason: removed third party site link
Can you just post the dxf on this site?Not on a third party site
Sorry, still new to this site. I didn't see the upload section. The Zip contains both the point cloud and the contours.
I sent your file to Bobcad here a link to thread http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showth...867#post189867
look at Rhino and use the demo download.
After having a look at both files I can say that you need a CAD system that will take a point cloud file and create a surface from it. Once you have done this you will need a CAM system that offers quality Z-Level roughing and finishing...both at the lowest cost possible eh?
CNC Dude
CNCdude> I have a CNC router that works great for 3D stuff. I know it will cut the file, its just creating it
lakeside> Thanks very much for all the help! I'll give it a try in Rhino, and see if I can come up with anything
Well, I've made a surface in Rhino, and exported as a .stl, which I've imported into mcamX. The only problem is its made of a lot of polygons, and so far, when I try to apply a toolpath, my computer crashes from the number of calculations. Any idea how to simplify the surface? I've attached the .stl. Thanks again everyone!
I'm not very good at the whole CAM deal yet but topo surfaces are my specialty
I can convert your point cloud into a X and Y grid of 3d polylines at any spacing.
Not sure if it'll help or not
Thanks Jkier, those polylines really help. What software did you use to make them, and any hints for me? I'm going to be making a few different ones soon, so I'll need to figure out how to do it myself :P
AutoCad Civil 3D, its basically meant for building surfaces.Originally Posted by Phunkshun
Not sure how else to go about creating them quickly
If you only have a couple I have no problem creating them for you.
Takes a matter of seconds with civil 3d
Thanks for the offer JKier, but I need to learn so I can teach other people how to do it. I guess what I've got to figure out what kind of surfaces mastercam likes to deal with.
.stl has a few uses but it's no good for smooth surfaces. (as you already know).
Try to export an .igs or a .dxf Or if you can convert the surface to a solid export it as a parasolid. Mastercam should handle any of these perfectly.
If you get tired of jumping back and forth from software to software, there is a company that makes an add-on for Mastercam that does this exact function. Contact Verisurf http://www.verisurf.com/
Then you can create your surface and cut it very efficiently all in Mastercam.
Download the demo of madcam which is a cam plugin for Rhino and give it a try.
Mike
No greater love can a man have than this, that he give his life for a friend.
My specialty is machining so I took your 3d polylines Jkier and turned them into a solid. But the file is to large to post. I'll put up some screen shots. If any wants file I can e-mail to you zipped just pm me with your adress.
So let recap this file. It started with whatever for topo surfaces . Then went to AutoCad Civil D for 3d polylines .Then Bobcad,with Bobcad I selected all 3d polylines--Solid Menu-Cross section -set lingth to 1" and took less than 1 minutes
Last edited by lakeside; 08-24-2006 at 11:13 AM.
lakeside> I also managed to make a solid from the polylines, but the only problem is there is a loss of the height data.
After playing around with it yesterday, I managed to create a nice polysurface using Rhino, and imported it with no problems into MastercamX. Now I am at a loss for what kind of toolpath to apply to it. Any suggetions guys?
Here is the polysurface from Rhino.
post as IGES can't open your file
you may want to start a new thread here in mastercam forum and ask Need 3d tool path for this surface? Where I don't use mastercam I can't help other that sugjested tool path but not programming of mastercam X.
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