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I’ve spent the day trawling forums, youtube videos and generally bugging people that I know and have still failed to work out how to recreate what I’m looking for. This all started when I watched the following video…
THE VIDEO HAS SOMEWAHT EXPLICIT CONTENT WHICH YOU MAY NOT FIND APPROPRIATE. IT WAS THE ONLY EXAMPLE OF THIS TECHNIQUE I COULD FIND.
I already do a lot of work with resin and, having just beefed up the wordwoking side of my workshop and booked myself in to a few craft fairs thought this would be a great project to work on.
So far I have discovered Halftoner 1.6 and DXF halftone. I currently use inkscape and either Easel or UGS for actually running my X-carve. The problem I have come up against is I can’t work out how to generate the G-Code or SVG using the software I have available to recreate the effect in the video I posted above.
I have worked out how to do an engrave using a V bit, and am pretty sure that I could manage a dot based halftone which is just engraved with no problems. However I am trying to replicate the complete cut through shown in the video so I can fill it full of resin and put a light source behind the framed piece. The video uploaded mentions using Easel, Corel, and a 1/16 straight end mill.
Could anyone give me a good play by play of how I would go about achieving this kind of cut on my X-carve? Advice on software workflow and then getting my CNC to cut the finished design would be greatly appreciated.
I figured that it was something different when he mentioned using straight end mills rather than what I found in other forum posts on here where people were employing various angled V bits. The struggle I’m having is working out which software flow (I currently have inkscape, Easel, photoshop and UGS) to take an image and get to the point where I have an SVG or G-code that I can use to make these cuts.
Essentially I can’t work out how to make the halftone line image and then get it into a format that can be sent to my X-Carve.
I did a quick test, you can export the image from halftoner.exe as a DXF file , then goto dxftosvg.com free online converter, once converted import into easel, choose your cut and the smallest possible bit to fit into the shapes, you could probably use 2 stage carving and use the largest possible bit as well to clear faster as well I’ve never used this in easel, set the depth to cut all the way through then carve…
Thanks guys. I think I may just be trying to overcomplicate the halftone I’m creating. So far when I try to import the SVG I create into Easel it simply crashes.
I may just have to try again with much more simple images and see if I can’t find a set of settings that work without over-straining the software.
I’ve so far used photoshop and halftonepro.com to try and produce halftone images (line versions) put the output into inkscape, convert to bitmap and then convert to paths before saving as SVG and then dropping this into Easel. This crashes Easel.
When I tried to output DXF from halftoner for some reason I couldn’t open the outputted DXF in Inkscape to convert it to a useable SVG. Somewhere I’m doing something wrong. I’ll go through it again and see if I can work out where.
I gave this method a go. However every time I generate a DXF and convert it using this route Easel eventually crashed on trying to import an SVG with upwards of 16,000 parts.
I tried simplifying the paths in inkscape of the converted SVG and then importing into Easel but that met with the same crash. Could I ask what image you used to test the method and what settings you used in halftoner to get a result which Easel would work on without crashing?
I just used a small 8x8 image of my son it did take awhile to load into easel , do you have v-carve ? U could try bringing it into v carve and generate gcode from vcarve.
I had been trying to put off another software purchase. But I think it might be time I at least pick up the trial to see if it can solve this and a few other issues I’ve been having.
It does seem to struggle. I know it’s possible as the comments and description of the video posted specifically say that he used Easel. It may just be that I’m using unsuitable images or settings on halftoner which are creating vectors that are far too complex, I may just need to lower my expectations as to the level of detail to aim for.
I think this is the route of my problems with regards to Easel crashing. Finding a conversion method that takes DXF to SVG with properly closed shapes may solve the issues I’ve been having.
One possibility is to open the .svg with open shapes into a program such as GIMP, safe it as a .jpg, open that in Inkscape, trace the image, then convert the trace to path. Yes, extra steps to be sure. It is how I deal with it at the moment.
I know I’m extremely late on this thread but looking at the video I would say that this is NOT simply a halftone carving but a combination of halftone AND lithograph. The reason why I’m telling that is when he shows the male torso at 3:20 on the video. Using only halftone there will be no way to get different shades inside the inlay itself (darker on the edge of the shoulder than on the shoulder itself for example). This is because he does not go all the way through the wood but leaves a thin layer with different thickness so light can pass through with different intensity and the resin does not leak out the wood.
So, you’ll not only need to carve the halftone but also take into consideration the depth of the carving based on the light intensity you need… Deep enough to get the light passing and not too deep to not go all the way through…
It’s a very clever job and creative usage of the two techniques… I’d love to do it too
