Engrave cylinder/Hemisphere?

[ken226]

I'm looking for CAM software to replace my Autodesk stuff. Most any software is capable of most of the operations I do, except it would seem, engraving 3 dimensional surfaces.

Is visualcam capable of engraving cylinders, tapered cylinders and hemispheres? I will be solid modeling the shapes and engravings using Alibre Design, and importing into CAM as a .stl file. Or, that is the intent anyway, since that's the way I've always done it with Inventor/HSM.

Thanks

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[Dan B]

Yes, this should be possible. The 2 1/2 axis engraving toolpath is actually a 3-axis path. It will follow your curves. But I would avoid STL. If you're modeling it as a solid, then just use the STEP translator. VisualCAM will work with STL's, but it seems like an unnecessary step if you've already modeled it as a solid.