New to the machine and have photos I would like to carve into wood, how would I upload photos to the program?
There used to be a software package called photovcarve. I never personally used it. It appears to save as a CRV file type that would have to be converted to one the Xcarve can open.
John,
Did you do that with your laser?
No. It is carved on my SO2. Then stained and sanded lightly. No clear coat.
If I purchase the "easel pro " , will I be able to do 3D ?- sorry for posting this on here John ,I don’t see very well and couldnt find the right way in
Easel or Easel Pro can not generate a 3D shape.
Other software may be required, but Easel can send the gcode from the other software.
Which program to use depend on personal preference and what specifically you want to carve.
The machine itself can do 3D relief carving no problem.
I’ll give it a try.
Thanks for responding.
Thanks everyone!!
With Vectric V Carve you can import 3d designs and then edit it some then create tool paths for carving.
This is true for for either desktop or pro. Pro is a bit more powerful with available gadgets and no tiling required for designs over 25 inches.
Aspire lets you create 3d designs.
John,
What software do you use?
I cant detect any cutter lines.
What are the particulars of the job (cutter, angle, step over, speed, depth)
Jan,
I did the Mr. Bean image about three years ago, so I do not remember the exact settings I used. I think I used a 1/8" dia., 20 or 30 degree, engraving bit, 0.005" stepover, 150ipm feed rate. Gcode was generated with my software, but I prefer to not spam the forum with particulars. The engraving itself is not true 3D. I use similar method to make lithophanes.
John
I’ve been interested in carving pictures myself with the Xcarve. I came across the following website: https://rastercarve.live which uses the software from the rastercarve GitHub project. I haven’t tried it yet, but it looks like a promising possibility for generating gcode from a picture.
I tried the site you provided Tom. Easel does not seem to want to play nice with it. I keep getting an error code that reads:
Invalid G-code
Line 3: N1 G00 G90 G80 G28 G17 G20 G40 G49
The file contains invalid G-code syntax.
You must use one of our official post-processors in order to import external gcode.
Did you have any better luck with it?
I took some gcode generated by the web page and loaded it into camotics. This seemed to show reasonable tool paths. It looks like the generated gcode needs to be post processed to work with the xcarve. At a minimum, the Nxxx line number prepended to each line needs to be removed. In addition, the first line with the G00 G90 G80 G28 G17 G20 G40 G49 syntax may need to have these commands split across multiple lines. Please be aware that the generated gcode is assuming an origin at the upper left corner of the workpiece. I don’t know if I’ll get to it before the weekend, but I’ll make some changes to the gcode and try a test carve. If this works, it shouldn’t be too difficult to write a script to post-process the gcode to be compatible with the xcarve.
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That looks to have been done by laser?
That is due to the finish. It was, in fact, carved on my SO2 machine - no laser used or installed.
After carving into Poplar, a stain was applied, then lightly hand sanded to accentuate the highlights. No clear finish coat was used.
I carved it some time ago, using my software, PicEngrave Pro, as an example.