Please Help???????

[cajunpen]

I am trying to get my first project to come out right. I designed the Fleur Delis to fit on a 7 1/8 x 7 1/8 piece of 3/4 pine. In the design program it looked fine - but when I carved it, it came out quite a bit smaller and the carve quality was not very good. I used a board 3.5" longer than my designed project (wanted to keep it under rollers). In the process of setting up the project to run, one of the options was to scale to length or load new board. I opted to scale to length (which is probably my problem), but I thought that if I wanted to keep the project under the rollers, I had to put an "overlength" board in the machine?

Anyway, please take a look at the finished product and the design and anyone that can tell me what I did wrong will make me very happy :lol:

http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j46/cajunpen/th_FLEURDELISPROJECT001.jpg (http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j46/cajunpen/FLEURDELISPROJECT001.jpg)

[applik]

Removed

[John]

You need to add 7 inches (3.5 on each end) to keep the project under both rollers. I think you will get better results if you decrease the height of the carving. At least that has been my experience.

[John]

Just to followup. After downloading your project, I don't see any change in height until you get it down below 50. (You have it at 300.) I would set it at 40 or even 35. Also, I don't know where you have the bit optimization, but I would have it on the best setting.

[cajunpen]

Thanks Shari and John - I mistakenly thought that I need the board to be 3.5" longer than the project - I guess I need to slow down and read more, not be in such a hurry to get the chips flying.

So, does the height setting refer to the distance between the "region carving's lowest point" and the top of the actual board? I thought that the higher the settting the better, apparently it is just the opposite?

I'm hoping to get my carvings to look like Shari's :lol: Maybe some day?

Bill

[applik]

Removed

[yenne]

I'll be taking a look at the height setting to see what's going on. I can give you the history of it, though.

Originally there were two settings: how deep the base should be, and how tall the pattern should be. Both were in inches, and this allowed excellent flexibility for placing patterns with respect to each other in 3D.

Merges complicate things, though. When a pattern is additive (on top of) another one, what does it mean when their combined height at the tallest aggregate point is above the surface of the board? It's not as simple as their total height being greater than their depth, since one pattern may be added into a depression of another pattern (or surface) and fit perfectly fine.

We experimented with various techniques and ultimately found that the percentage-like height value was the least confusing solution. The software automatically scales aggregate patterns so that they never "top out" above the board surface, and the heights values have only a relational meaning to each other.

The base is still represented in inches, though, and should not change with different values of heights. The fact that this is happening means that something is wrong and I need to take my trusty pick-axe to the software again. I'll teach it the repercussions of defying me yet again. ha!

[applik]

Britt,
You are way too funny! I didn't know programmers had a humorous side. :lol:

Shari

[yenne]

I didn't know programmers had a humorous side.
Necessary. Trying to take computers too seriously is a recipe for a heart attack. :)

[wlhtrain]

The hardest part to recognising programmer humor is that most of the time it has been HEAVILY folded, spindled, and mutilated by a computer before exposed to fellow humans.

Did you ever notice that in the days of computer cards and the warning to not fold, spindle, or mutilate was more often commited by the machine and not the humnan element? :shock:

I'm stopping now so as NOT to set my desk top off...I hope... :wink: