"Random" texture

[gerald_d]

Anybody have ideas how to create a "random" texture like this?:


2354

Something like a faux adze finish, or "hand-hewn". Can one use a spreadsheet and a random-number generator as an example......?

[benchmark]

Hi Gerald

I know that you can do this in Artcam....(The expensive route), or use Vectric Vcarve or PhotoVcarve.... use a vector drawing of a wood grain, for a tighter pattern I have copied and then pasted the vectors with an offset then V carved it with a ball cutter. Have you tried Vcarve yet ?


Paul

[edcoleman]

Gerald:

How about using the shopbot image converter? Take a digital pic of the surface and run it through the converter to create a sbp file. Playing around with the image first (contrast/brightness etc) might be necessary.

-Ed

[gerald_d]

Hi Paul, I havn't tried the Vectric VCarve, because we have another VCarve program that has been adequate till now.

That enlarged area in the pic above is actually a bit wrong for me - it shows "weathered grain" while I want adze marks. The grain and v-carve will give the type of detail in the enlargement. But I think I am looking for short "chop" marks in the grain direction.

Does Vectric VCarve handle ball bits?

[gerald_d]

This is the type of pattern that I think a round-nosed adze would leave, if it was CNC controlled!:


2355

....but the geometry must be much more "human" and not CNC-perfect.

[gerald_d]

Reckon if I plunge a ball cutter at the top of each red line, then cut along the line but raise the z as it goes to the other end....


2356

If I put a whole lot of perfect red lines into a spreadsheet, then use a random generator to apply an error in x,y to each end of the line........?

[benchmark]

Gerald

Vcarve handles ball nose cutters... maybe I can create some hand carved files for you.

2357

[gerald_d]

Paul, that looks like the dog's bollocks - perfect.


We have a 50mm ball nose, probably going 6mm deep at the most for this pattern.

Could you lay out a dxf of a "tile" say 300 to 400 square where the edges will match up? I can handle vertical arcs in G-code, so I am looking for a dxf that probably has only one arc per "facet"

[stevem]

Paul, how about a short lesson on how you did that with VCarve.

[jhicks]

Not sure how you did that but its "Way Cool" Guess I need to stay tuned to this. If its a tool path and strategy that one can deploy with simple lines and V cut geometry to "Elevate and and lower" the z on a round over/ ball nose, please explain further. I can envision a technique but you obviously have it down.

[benchmark]

Gerald, I will take that as a compliment !!

Sorry for the delay in replying but I am extremely busy at the moment. The picture above was done with Artcam with a raster in X which is extremely slow and does not have a very good finish unless you have very small stepover.

I have done some short arc per "facet" with Enroute Pro ( I do not use it at present as I have not upgraded it to work beyond Win98)

I will try to find the old files for you....How urgent is it ?

Steve, when I find the DXF files it should work with Vcarve.


Paul

[gerald_d]

Not urgent at all - I am trying to build up a library of textures to show prospective clients. Thanks for the time so far.

[Brian Moran]

Hi ,
you can achieve similar results to the ‘adze’ texture by v-carving lots of overlapping, variable sized ovals using a ball nose tool. However, as v-carving only works with non-overlapping vectors you have to select sub sets of the vectors carefully and create toolpaths for non-overlapping sections. You will also get a ‘double’ toolpath as the v-carving will move down the centre of the ovals and back again.

There are a number of drawbacks to this approach other than the doubled up toolpath segment. The biggest is that creating variations on the texture involves drawing new sets of geometry, others include speed and the large number of toolpaths which may need to be generated for the different non-overlaping sections.

With this in mind we have been playing with an approach similar to Gerald’s suggestion of using ‘random’ perturbations of the toolpath sections. The first results from this are shown below and I think the textures look very interesting and will machine MUCH more efficiently than trying to machine a ‘3d relief’ of the texture with a relatively small ball nose tool. The toolpath for this texture consists of single passes for each ‘segment’ of the texture. We had planned to incorporate this feature into VCarve Wizard 3.5, but if there is enough interest we may look at bringing it forward into VCW 3.0 (VCW 3.0 will be free to all existing users).


2358

2359

2360

2361

The top two images were created with a ball nose tool, the second two with a vbit. The 2nd and 4th images show the result of combining two texturing toolpaths at different angles, which creates some very cool effects.

The toolpaths above were created and simulated in less than 5 seconds on my machine, and varying the parameters is very simple and a lot of fun!

Hope these are of interest

Brian

[paco]

Hey Brian!

I would really like to benefit this feature as soon as possible! It look good! I'm interested.

[evan]

Brian,
To paraphrase Gerald "Woof woof"
and quote Paco "It look good! I'm interested."
Bring it on, the sooner the better.

[gerald_d]

While the minds are churning out in Redditch.....

How about applying some "random-ness" to this perfectly square grid pattern:


2362

The above has little square patterns replicating in a 2 inch grid (for example). What if that grid was made of wavy lines so that the 2" dimension varies from 1.7 to 2.3 inches. Macro-randomness to a detail pattern.....

I am thinking maybe even to take the typical V-Carve inputs (even scans) and then "morph" them a bit. Remember the computer tricks where you can look at someone's photo on the screen, click on their nose and drag it around a bit?.....

Taking that sample pic above, could one click and drag sections so that x,y cords are "distorted" but z stays constant.....

[benchmark]

Another

Created with Vcarve....the small flate can be removed with setting zero just below the surface


2363

[patricktoomey]

Would anybody be interested in a program to build optimized ShopBot toolpath files for various textures? Besides being a relatively new 'bothead I'm also a long time programmer and this thread has me intrigued. I could pretty quickly whip up an application that would build some textures like these and let us configure things like depth, stroke length, randomness, etc. Then it could build the tool paths as efficiently as possible. If there is enough interest I'll build something for everyone to play with. (Note: anything I build for shop botters will be free of charge, I learn so much from all of you by reading these forums it's the least I can do.)

[normand]

Gerald you could tesselate your tiles.

[gerald_d]

tesselate..... are we allowed to do that on a public forum?

Hi Normand, that is the word I was looking for when I first mentioned the tiles - I had to look it up to understand. tessellate (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tessellate)

More examples (http://spdoors.com/Gallery/Textures/Default.htm) of texturing

[pete]

Patrick - I, for one, would certainly be interested in such programming. I think several people over the years have been looking for wood-graining type of texture without having to use sandblasting equipment. Please see what you can do for us. Thanks.

[gerald_d]

Patrick, in case you were thinking that I ignored you....of course I would be interested. That's why I started the thread!

[paco]

Patrick,

I would be interested to see what you can come up with too.

[brian_harnett]

A set of good carving gouges works remarkably well and will be authentic I find the human computer is more efficient.
I love using my shopbot but I have found there are times when I can do it better than a machine.

[Brian Moran]

Hi,

This is a fun subject! I’ve got the trimmed textures working now in the development version of VCarve Wizard and this does give some really nice effects as you can see in the images below. The 3d preview is pretty essential as it’s very difficult to guess what the result will be like simply by looking at the toolpaths, as the toolpaths all just look like a random collection of lines! This feature will now definitely be in VCarve Wizard 3.0 (which will be free to all existing users).

Sign with ballnose texture between selected vectors


2364

test example showing a single texture ...


2365

and then with two textures crossing.


2366

I was tempted by Gerald's suggestion of calling them "Vectures" ...

Brian

[paco]

Awesome!

Would it be possible to have other (more) kind of textures?... something like waving...

Can the angle of the texture path be controlled?

Can you control the offset from vector (to avoid gouging) and get specific effects?

[Brian Moran]

Hi Paco,
At the moment we don't plan to add too many texture types for V3.0 - but on Wednesday we hadn't planned to include vector texturing at all :-) ! However over time I'm sure we will expand the types available.

> Can the angle of the texture path be controlled?


Yes - with the current version the angle can be controlled - thats how the third example above was done, one texture toolpath at -30 degrees and one at 40 degrees.

>Can you control the offset from vector (to avoid gouging) and get specific effects?

It will texture between any selected group of vectors (including nested islands). The texture toolpaths will all 'blend up' to the selected boundary so the centre of the tool will not cross the selected vectors at will be at Z zero (or a selected start height) at the boundary. For an example like the Westley Court above where the texture toolpaths came up to the surface, this is all you need to do. For the lower two images with the text "Vectric Texture" where the texture meets the lettering below the surface, I just offset the text by about the radius of the tool and created the texture toolpaths upto that and VCarved afterwards.

Gerald - you must have too many pages in your dictionary, though I always liked the Vauxhall Viva!

Brian

[gerald_d]

Brian, this stuff is darn impressive, and I would like to cut an area tomorrow; 360 x 450mm panel, 50mm ball nose, 5 mm deep max, major "hack angle" parallel to long axis. Could you drop me a G-Code file for Mach?

The Viva appeared '63 - I am a Morris Minor fan myself.

[gerald_d]

Normand Blais will be along to explain his work:
(he mailed me the bigger pic)


2367 (http://www.mechmate.com/Forum/messages/32/688.jpg)
(click for bigger view)

What I cut this afternoon:


2368
2369
2370
same pattern, different depths, one panel from both sides, 16mm MDF, 90 deg. V-cutter.

[gerald_d]

Hi Normand, where are you? These were the words in his mail:

"Here is a pic of texture I got from bit map software highfield ZSURF rhino and visualmill"

[gerald_d]

When I started this thread only 4 days ago, I really did not think that I would be producing this today:


2371 (http://www.mechmate.com/Forum/messages/32/690.html)
Click above for more pics
Again those amazing Vectric chaps, Brian & Tony, picked up the ball and ran with it. Based purely on my simple spec in this thread (NO further questions), they mailed me a cutting file yesterday and that file worked without any tweaks. (I suppose it does help that we speak the same version of English and use the metric system
)

[benchmark]

Gerald, That's the MUTTs NUTs !!!!!!

It seems that vectric have come up trumps yet again. Any chance of a copy of the cutting file, if that is OK with Brian and Tony,

Paul

[stevem]

Can this be done on a curved surface?

[normand]

Hi Gerald This Morning I try to find the link for Zsurf a freeware found on rhino forum but their server in down for now.It is a highfeild software like the one in shopbot.window bitmap highfeild.I take a microscope picture then extract to the hight I want and apply it to another hightfield surface,in this case a dome ,and flatten it a bit ,and crop.

[stevem]

Rhino 3 has a "heighfield from image" and "mesh heightfield" command. No need to go to another software for that.

[bleeth]

A great way to draw wavy lines for creating a texture is to make a row of ellipses of varying lengths that overlap and then remove the overlapping sections. If you make the right and left side of the tile 1/2 of an ellipse then you get a repeating line. You can then do another line of overlapping ellipses slightly overlapping the line below and continue with the same method. If your software permits, you can toggle parts on and off by layering and follow what you are doing quite clearly. If your top and bottom row are 1/2 versions of each other you can tile in all directions. By then cutting between vectors with the ball nose you will execute the design quite quickly. The result is an excellent hand carved looking texture.

Dave

[djmcnutt]

I see all of this talk on textures. Any suggestions on cerating trim to look like a hand hewed log?


2372

[hespj]

"Rhino 3 has a "heighfield from image" and "mesh heightfield" command.".......Steve M

Thanks for that Steve, I hadn't come across this command before, but have been trying to achieve this effect.

John

[jf_allie]

Hey Gerald,

Just a suggestion, try your file from your post:
http://www.talkshopbot.com/forum/show.cgi?tpc=2&post=35660#POST35660
in a small piece of multilayered plywood just to see what the lines made by the layers will bring to the pattern.

[gerald_d]

J-F, that was the first thing that I did try, but the ply quality was #%@! and it showed too many flaws and cross-grain. We are cutting that pattern for the local agent for Valchromat (http://www.avonplywood.ltd.uk/noframes/valchromat%20info.htm) who wants to see this (http://www.avonplywood.ltd.uk/images/Valchromat%20Panel%205.jpg)

[jhicks]

Gerald That is some COOL material and an excellent texture. All with a 90 V? Looks like it would be a neat technique on any multi layered material. Like Color Core or similar plastics.
Was this artwork simply some wavy lines with V carving between them?
What was the bit used on that "basket weave" style shown in photo above? Some small roundover or what? Not sure how much time these textures take but they are really neat to look at and think about for new applications and designs.
Whats the secret?

[gerald_d]

All with a 1.5" 90 deg V-cutter. Much simpler than "wavy lines with V carving between them". The wavy lines are actually arc segments (parts of circles). The toolpath is exactly the same arc segments flipped up into the vertical plane - this works because the cutter is 45 deg to each side (and because Mach handles vertical arcs). The "basket weave" is also the 90V cutter, same toolpath, but cut from both sides.

[robtown]

Here's a couple examples of ways to do it:

2373
A texture modeled in 3dsmax, on this one I modeled the relief, I made the parts I wanted to machine away, as opposed to making a model of what wanted the end up with. Am I making sense?
Results:

2374
And:

2375
Finally:

2376

Here's a recent texture I worked with a Conneticut Shopbotter with:

2377
In this case it's a 3d model of what I wanted to end up with. I have a foam sample of this but haven't got a picture of it, guess I'll have to do that today and post it later.

[stickman]

Gerald,

I love the look that you got from the machining you did. This new v-carve software is something else!

Jay

[kimon]

I too agree that the textures you acheived are great. I have just loaded V-Carve Pro v 3 and love it. Can you give me some specifics on the tooling you used? I am working on a Ranch Sign out of rough cut poplar asnd would like to use a similar patern as the background.

Also if you would please include tooling sources. Thanks so much.

(BTW Tony and the rest of the Vectric gang are amazing with customer support)

[kimon]

Thanks but i reread the post and see your reference to tooling.

I used a 1" core bit and the results were great! Maybee too good I actually went in and used a wood chissel to rough it up a bit befor beating it with a chain and burning the surface (shooting for a rustic look) I will post pics once I get the finish completed.