3D table top using Aspire's distortion feature
Here's a project that features the new model distortion feature in Aspire 3.
I had a customer bring me a hickory glue-up for a round table top. The plan was to create a 3D wildlife design in a ring with some walnut inlay rings on each side. The challenge was going to be how do I get the Design & Carve mantle scenes to wrap around and look good. That's where the new model distortion feature in Aspire 3 came to the rescue. After hacking up a mantle scene to have hardwoods on each end and varying backgrounds, I was able to distort the models to fit 1/4 of the ring. After getting them in place, I put one tree at the joints to blend them together. Four different scenes were then made by adding various elements to them without distortion. There were several small animals and birds stuck here and there throughout each scene.
The roughing pass was done with a 0.25" downcut endmill in both X and Y to help remove some extra zig-zag steps around the perimeter of the rings to better clear the path for the finish tool.
Roughing pass was 3 hours and finish pass with a 0.0625" ballnose was 21 hours. A few hours for the inlay.
The customer wanted to fill it with epoxy and flood the whole surface also. I printed out Tim Merrill's glazing technique guide and they went to work on it. The finished table looked beautiful! They did an outstanding job with the glazing and epoxy. It looks as if you could reach right into it.
At first I had no idea how I was going to get the model to wrap around in a ring, but after the distortion tool became available it was much easier. Still, quite a few hours were spent getting the rest as desired.
A big thanks to the Vectric team for the work they have done with Aspire and also for VectorArt 3D and the Design & Carve Wildlife series.
Scott
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