Anyone Do Software Processing for CNC Wood Carvings?

nmguy
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Anyone Do Software Processing for CNC Wood Carvings?

A friend asked if I would help do conversions of photographs so he could make 3D (aka relief) carvings on his CNC router on wood. I spent time learning about the process, some of the software available and how to use some of the software. I've found it's a complicated process if it's done right, and even more complicated if done wrong..

The light finally turned on when I realized there may be people here who have gone down this path. I'd like to ask if anyone has done this before and if you'd be willing to share tools, techniques and/or thoughts on your methods.

To date my process has been to use Affinity on a photo to make a tone appropriate to map the depth of cut for portions of the photo. I take it into Blender to do the displace operation to form the image and make a .stl file of the model. From there it goes to Vcarve to make the machine code for the CNC router.

So far I've gotten pretty good results on portraits, landscapes and wildlife photos. My problem is that I don't know how good they can get and if I'm making the process unnecessarily difficult.

Thanks for any help.

Jun 27, 2023 at 07:25 PM

runamuck
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Anyone Do Software Processing for CNC Wood Carvings?

I did CNC programming for a machine shop, but that was 15 years ago and most is now lost from not being used. It is probably far simpler today than it was then. We used autocad among others.
WARNING! If you do, always run a simulation. This avoids parts crashing together. Machinists hate sudden loud noises.

Jun 27, 2023 at 09:16 PM

nmguy
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Anyone Do Software Processing for CNC Wood Carvings?

Thanks for the warning, my friend is pretty skittish around loud noises too.

I saw Autocad had a few programs available yet. I'm not real wild about investing in their products as I only expect to be doing this once a month or so. I'll give them a second look though just to cover my options.

I appreciate the help, thanks.

Jun 28, 2023 at 12:06 AM

Ischgl99
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Anyone Do Software Processing for CNC Wood Carvings?

This is a good question for the guys over at the Hobby Machinist forum, www.hobby-machinist.com. There are a lot of guys that do stuff with CNC over there and might be some doing exactly what you want. It is a very helpful group and welcoming to new guys, so feel free to register and post your question.

You might want to check into Autocad’s Fusion360, it is free for hobbyists, and can output g-code for a CNC router. I’m not sure what the free version can do for that since I only use it for modeling and drawings of my projects.

Jul 05, 2023 at 10:45 AM

nmguy
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Anyone Do Software Processing for CNC Wood Carvings?

I've been occupied other places lately so I'm slow on the response. I do appreciate the lead though, I'll check them out.

Jul 22, 2023 at 11:39 PM


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