How do you apply a picture/texture to the surface of a 3D CAD drawing for engraving?

[OneAndy]

I apologize in advance if this has been answered before or if I'm asking in the wrong forum, but a brief search turned up nothing.

Just for background purposes, I'm a rank newbie. I've just barely finished the mechanical side of building my cnc (now waiting for keling to get my motors in stock!) so please assume that I know very little.

My application is gun stocks and gun grips. I want to be able to design the basic grips and stocks on a CAD program, save that design, and then apply a logo, or checkering, or pictures (oak leaves, antlers, skulls, lightening bolts, other neat stuff) as an engraving. That way, I can really get into some deep customizing.

Now, I understand (er, sort of) how to design something in CAD and I think I understand how to export that to a toolpath program... and I think I understand how alot of these dedicated sign-making/engraving programs work... but is there a program that will allow me to apply an engraving to a curved surface like a gun stock or gun grips? I'm talking about a 3-dimensional engraving that is set a uniform depth from the surface of the object. Am I making any sense?

And for entertainment value... here's what I've BEEN making gun grips on for the past 6 months or so.

Yes, I realize now how ghetto-fied that pantograph is. Hey, it works. Its a PITA, but it works.
These are the kinds of things I want to be able to use my cnc to engrave.






Any knowledge and advice ya'll could throw my way would be greatly appreciated.

[todd71]

ArtCAM will do it. Make your checkering into a relief then apply it to the
selected vector as a texture. You can paste the logo relief on top of that. The logos might be pretty small so you will not have that great of detail without using a tiny tool.