Photo. VCarve convert a photograph to CNC relief. Vectric Photo. Vcarve is a great piece of software to turns your photographs into great CNC projects. There are many different styles  that can be used within this software package. This time i will show how you can turn a photograph into a wooden relief. Awesome Cnc Projects For Vectric Aspire' title='Awesome Cnc Projects For Vectric Aspire' />The first thing we need is a photograph, in this case its the pride of Dennis and Kika Named EmiliaIsnt she sweet Most industry standard pixel based image file formats can be opened and used with Photo. Vcarve. JPG, BMP, TIF, GIF, PNGLets start of by loading the image into Photo. Vcarve. After loading the image you can decide to limit the toolpath to only cut inside specific regions. This is done by interactively selecting colours in the image to be Transparent. This can be very useful for removing unwanted background detail from a photograph. More on this option in my next tutorial when i actually will use a V Carve instead of a relief. In the section Set Material Size we can set all material settings. Check the radio button to select Inches or Metric units. Now you can set any x or y size where x will be the horizontal size, en y the vertical size. You will only need to fill in one of them as the aspect ratio of the original file will be retained. The Thickness Z holds the value of you material thickness. Heres a great CNC hack that adds a ton of functionality, a DIY rotary 4th axis Jim had started this project over a year ago when he originally. Now we have to decide where our carve Zero must be located. First of all we want the Z0 on top of the material, and from the we carve down in Znegative direction. To do this we select the top radio button of Z zero. With the radio button square we can select corners, or center for the X and Y Zero. But you can also use the text boxes to give the exact offset. This can be very interesting if you use this carve inside a bigger project. For now we click on the left bottom corner for easy of positioning the workpiece later on. Let us show you how easily you can upgrade the technology of your workshop. The Axiom Precision AutoRoute family of machines are simply the best CNC value going. The trial version will not allow you to save a toolpath for your CNC other than the special sample files that are included. However, any files that are created and. Vectric PhotoVcarve is a great piece of software to turns your photographs into great CNC projects. There are many different styles that can be used within this. MAKE YOUR VISION REALITY. MAKE YOUR VISION REALITY. CNC solutions for everyone. So where is X0, Y0, Z0 Yep in the bottom left corner on top of the material block remember that one. Conceptos De Hardware Software Y Firmware Update. Click Apply and where of to section 3. Section 3 is named Set Cutting Parameters And this is the most important part. First we have to know what typestyle we want to achieve, in this case i want a relief of 2,5mm depth. For a relief file i would want to use a ball nose cutter, this will give the best and smooth relief result. The smaller ball nose you choose the finer the result, but machine time will take more also. For this picture 1. Im only carving 2,5mm depth, so i will not use more then one tool More on this when we do LithophanesWithin the tool selection screen you can change any feed to your needs, these where good for my machine. You can also make new, or copy and change tools hereMean thing here For a relief Photograph its best to choose a small ball nose. Oke we want a relief result of 2,5mm depth. This means that the difference between the lightest part and the darkest part on the image will be 2,5mm depth. So at first we set the carving max depth setting on 2,5mm. Now the line spacing, the slider tells you you can set anything between 1. But the text box on the side can be set to 1. And yes we want that. The ball nose will carve this relief by carving a lot of lines. The 1. 0 means that the space between these lines will be 1. Set the line angle to 4. This way the tool gets least of the load, more on that later onThe check boxes Invert dark and light, Cross Hatch and the contrast slider can be left alone. Low quality photographs can be improved by enhancing the contrast to improve the machined results. Rapid clearance cap is set to 1, this way the rapid feeds will be done 1mm above the surface. This must be a hight save of fixtures etc, but keep it low to keep machine time down. In the last section of Photo. Vcarve we can preview the result. If you sell these products you can change material settings, color, rotate and zoom to make nice screenshots. Set the rapid rate to something you desire, in my case its set to 2. This way you can make a estimated machine time, to decide the actual cost for your customer. My machine rapids at speeds over 2. Vectric  calculates a machine time of 1 hour and 5. This project took me 1 Hour and 5. So the first time you will have to compare this, and in the future projects you will know the best settings. Select the post processor you need, in my case the one for Mach. Load the G code into Mach. DROs. And start milling This will take some time 2 Hours as calculated beforeAfter the carving is done, you could use Vectrics Cut. D to make a nice cut outTo bad Vectric did not sponsor me a version of Cut 2d TIP haha, so i will use the table sawUsing Wood stain my girl who does all the Robo. CNC paint work. paints the relief. You can see that Emilia already appears in the woodAfter a good night sleep its time to take some 1. Vectric Photo. Vcarve makes the dark areas deep, and light areas less deep. When using sandpaper we bring back this contrast effect, and the real Photograph appearsTaadaaa. DIY CNC Rotary 4th Axis. Heres a great CNC hack that adds a ton of functionality, a DIY rotary 4th axisJim had started this project over a year ago when he originally ordered the gearhead off e. Bay, but like many good intentions, sometimes projects just get pushed to the back burner until necessity forces action. That necessity was entering our Trinket Contest, and he decided to finish it off just so he could put a Ha. D logo on a piece of PVC for us Unfortunately it took him a bit too long, and he only finished it last week but luckily he had a fallback plan, and submitted his CNC Etch a Sketch project instead, which won him a Trinket anyway The 4th axis uses a 2. Harmonic Drive Systems 1. Its extremely accurate, has minimal backlash, and by using a 1. Gecko stepper drive, Jim is getting about 6. Not bad for a home made setup Check out his blog for a great write up on the project, and stick around after the break to see the 4th axis in action.