Cutting stratedgy advice needed

[myxpykalix]

I'm thinking of making a headboard for one of my daughters and wanted to use either this image or something better (if anyone has anything better?)

My thought was that i would cut it so that the tree would stand proud of the surface, or an area clear? The top of the canopy of the tree would dictate the actual curvature of the top of the headboard. I thought i would also carve the kids pics near the branches. Am I on the right track? Any advice on carving it a different/better way? What about all the detail in the plumage of the branches, is that going to be a problem?


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[dray]

Thats COOL! I might have a dxf of a similar tree Jack lemme look.

[knight_toolworks]

I would like one too if you have it.

[paul_n]

Jack...

You have mail...

Paul

[myxpykalix]

When i take some of the various pictures and try to convert them what happens is the object seems to be raised from the surface as in the pic here, (the top example) where is is a flat 90 degree to the surface. This is a representation of the tree trunk from the surface. What i want is to round the model so that it looks like a round trunk protruding from the surface, as in the second example, but i can't figure out how to do that.

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[djmcnutt]

Jack,

I was just at the V Carve Pro users conference in PA on Saturday. They demoed version 4 and took your picture and made it into a V carve file and it looked great. You may want to email Tony at Vectric and ask him how he did it. By the way all of the new features being released in VCarve Pro 4 are great.

[myxpykalix]

You should ask him to post it or send it on, i'd love to see it.

[GlenP]

Jack, I posted a tree in eps format on the yahoo site under eps and ai files. The file is 00000417 called large tree. I think it is close to what to your picture above.
Good Luck and keep us posted
GLen

[stevem]

Jack, is this what you had in mind?
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[dray]

Steve...


How did you do that?!!??!!?!?!!?!?!?!?

[stevem]

If that’s not what you had in mind, try shading the trunk lighter towards the centre of the cross section and gradually darker towards the edges, before conversion to heightfield.

Danny, I used the mesh heightfield utility in Rhino, at a height of .050”.

[jhicks]

does anyone know if the newer version is a free update or is it an upgrade charge for existing owners?

[djmcnutt]

They said if you bought after April 2006, it would be no charge. Before that I think it was like $130 for the upgrade.

[paco]

Danny,

if you like what Steve did, check out this Virtual tool; C:\Program Files\ShopBot\ShopBot 3\Bin\UX_BMP.exe


9090

Still, Rhino offer more features but I though you would like to see what in around SB folders...

[dray]

Thx Paco! Thats cool..

I wish there was a preview so I can adjust height etc before opening in sb3

[myxpykalix]

What im trying to achieve is the opposite of what you see posted (unless my eyes are bad), I want the trunk to stick up from the surface, this looks like it is carved into it. So basically the background sky would be area cleared so the trunk would stick up from the surface. In doing that also i wanted the trunk to be rounded instead of flat like my illustration above.

[dray]

I dont know how to round the tree. I would cut it and sand it lol

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[djmcnutt]

Jack, You may want to talk with James Booth from Carve3d he can make you a file to cut just what you want. www.carve3d.com (http://www.carve3d.com)

[butch]

Jack
I just bought my ShopBot last fall, so it may be different, but you may be able to access the ShopBot program under the File tab/File (C)onversion. Select the drop down tab in the bottom right corner and select jpg/bmp and this program pops up.
I have used it, and it works fairly well.

Butch

[gwilson]

Jack,
This is just a thought, and I do not know what bits you have. Cut the tree out in a square type form like you show above then go over the edges again with a round over bit.
Gerald

[myxpykalix]

Gerald, That sounds like you would be doing it twice and as it is it will be 36x78 plus you would probably have to figure a slight offset in all 3 axis and i can see problems with bit gouging so i don't think thats an option. Its a good suggestion. It has more to do with manipulating the model. If you cut a tree down the center and laid it on the table, thats the look i'm going for I just don't know the terminology to explain it but i'm getting close.

[tony_mac]

Here's the design previewed in the Beta version of VCarve Pro 4.


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The image was vectorized using the new tracing functionality and a Flat Bottom VCarving toolpath calculated. The tracing includes an option to threshold / reduce the number of colours in an image and this worked perfectly to remove the background noise, leaving the tree detail.

More information on VCarve Pro 4 will be posted soon.

I hope this test is of interest.

Tony

[myxpykalix]

Now THAT"S what i'm talkin about! Looks great!

[djmcnutt]

Glad Tony jumped in and shared this with us. I knew I saw it at the VCarve conference.