Scaling drawing to match bit.

[dubliner]

I'm making a paint template and I'm wondering how can you pick a bit eg 1/8 em, and scale the smallest part of the drawing to let a 1/8 em pass and so the rest of the drawing will be scaled & the bit will pass all areas. The paint template can be sized according to what the scaling procedure makes it. It would be cool option, if you could choose a bit & the vectors would draw themselves allowing that bit to pass, or would it?

[curtiss]

Not sure if I understand but, If you are just cutting profile linework and not a large "area clear" can you just call out a bit that is say ".05 in diameter" and then insert your .125 bit and run it ??? .05 should pass most areas I would think.

[shoeshine]

Neville, I have no idea how to do this in Aspire, but it is comparatively easy to do in Rhino. one just finds the two closest lines and then does a relative scale of the whole document.

sometimes it's nice to have a number of softs to work with. I find myself going back and forth between PW, Rhino, and Illustrator (and Lightwave for 3d) often as each has things it does well that are a pain in the other software.

If this is a one-off, I'd be glad to do do a relative scale for you in Rhino and shoot you back a DXF.

[dubliner]

Thanks Curtis & Chris, essentially what I'd like to do is select the bit, then have the drawing match it. Chris's idea is the best solution and thanks for the offer to scale it for me. I have Rhino so now I'll have to learn it. I scaled the vector to a .125 circle in Aspire, but I think the Rhino idea is better. Thanks again guys.

[shoeshine]

No problem, offer still stands. It is about a 3 min (tops) operation in Rhino once you learn how the tools work.

And just my opinion, but learning Rhino (or another good NURBS modeler, there are several) is worth it. The learning curve can be steep, but it does things that you simply cant do, or do easily, in other softs.

Now if I can just find a way to create good toolpathing off of splines...

Chris

[dubliner]

Well thanks very much Chris. Rhino has put me off learning it a few times, but perhaps I need to apply myself a little harder & focus on this task, perhaps I could talk you into outlining the steps???? :-). Actually, I just need to watch the tutorials... closely! A general question, how are you using/applying Rhino to your work - I'd love to see some examples if you wouldn't mind - Neville

[dubliner]

How long would it take me to learn how to do it in Rhino wink!, again thanks for the offer Chris, perhaps I'll break out the tutorials. May I ask how you use it, so I might see other applications for Rhino? tx Neville

[shoeshine]

Neville, I'll do my best, though I warn you my copy of Rhino is ancient v1.1 so the commands/layout has probably changed.

first I find the narrowest spot on my drawing. Then with osnap set to "ortho & near" I drew a polyline across the gap to use as a reference object. you can use menu-analyze-length to determine current scale. in this case it is .25 or 1/4in as my grid is set to 1 unit = 1 inch.

Now say I want to use a 1/2 endmill to cut this out. I would select all. set osnap to "end" so as to pick up the points on the ends of my reference line. use the scale tool. it will ask for origen point, pick up one end of our line. next it will ask for scale factor or first reference point. there are 2 ways to do this here. one is to simply enter a scale factor of "2" because we know we want to double the scale 1/4 to 1/2. the other way is to pick up the other end of the line and drag the second reference point to the desired distance.

phew, explaining this is taking longer by far than doing it ;-)

as for examples, let me dig around a bit. unfortunately I am terrible about keeping portfolio work.


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