Photo dither, newsprint, carve thingy.......?

[spalted]

I was experimenting again yesterday.

I used the Gimp newsprint filter to create sort of a halftone of a photo or a dither.(not sure I have the terms are correct, so I will use all of them I know)

My thought was that if I set the height to 999 and a depth of about .06 It would carve a series of varying size dots, leaving the surface of the board surface flat not relief carved, It didn't work. It carved a very shallow carving. Unfortunately I was mad and burned the board and deleted the mpc file. So I have nothing to post.:roll:

Anyway the big plan was to carve the series of dot and stain them and I would be left with a black and white newspaper style of carved photo.

I just did a search here. Photo vcarve by vetric looks interesting, but I'm not buying it even if it is good. That is the look I was trying for, I think.

Carvepic was another program mentioned here, but development appears to have stopped. It's only about $40 but the odd buggy functioning and lack of development make me think I want to avoid it.

After all that rambling, I do have a question.

Has anyone found a solution that is working for them?
I can't tell if I am on the right track, because there are so many variables. So I figured instead of trying to reinvent the wheel I should just ask.

I just remembered I have the png yet that I applied the newsprint filter too. I posted it so you can see what I started with.

I think I have a workable idea, but I'm not sure what to do with it from here.

I'm just a little lost on this one, point me the right direction and I'll by ya a beer, thanks.

[mtylerfl]

Hi Spalted,

I too, have been wanting to do photos in either a dithered style (which I have seen some folks post on the forum awhile back - looked really good) or better, a line style like what PhotoVCarve can do. I saw several samples of PhotoVCarve photos at a Vectric (Aspire) conference last year. I talked to some of the fellows who made them and learned it's not always easy to get the result you want, but it is certainly achievable (sometimes requires a little trial and error to get the depth and line settings just right).

Unfortunately, V-Carve does not work for the CarveWright system - there is currently no way to export any format that the CW can use. Part of the 'secret' of the effect that PhotoVCarve gives, is that a photo is line-carved with a V-bit only.

I've been toying with the idea of trying a "lined" raster of a photo, but I anticipate it won't be as "crisp-looking" as a v-carve.

Keep us updated on any progress and other ideas you may have. Perhaps we can figure out a slick way of doing this.

[brdad]

I was thinking the dithering would be easy but in the case of a newspaper image, there are still shades of gray, it is not just black and white. You could experiment with reducing the image to 2 color and perhaps dithering from there?

[spalted]

Brdad,

I was thinking that after I posted. I will try desaturating and the posterize down to two colors then apply the newsprint filter.
I thinkyour right that might get me closer.

Michael,

I didn't know that vcarve was lines, I thought it was dots. Like a fine dot matrix of sorts. Thats why I tried the newsprint filter.

I will keep playing with it and see.

It's hard to know if I'm getting close. I could have the right idea and a poor choice of photos you know.

Nothing a six pack and a late night at the computer can't solve though......lol

[mtylerfl]

Hi Spalted,

I corrected my post to say "PhotoVCarve" (instead of just VCarve). PhotoVCarve and VCarve are actually different products.

Here's a link to PhotoVCarve: http://www.vectric.com/WebSite/Vectric/pvc/pvc_index.htm

Here's a link to the process description of PhotoVCarve's use: http://www.vectric.com/WebSite/Vectric/pvc/pvc_process.htm

As you can see, the toolpathing is the key - our CW's don't use toolpathing in the same way that other CNC machines use them. The CW uses grayscales - not conventional toolpathing.

[spalted]

yep you are correct, but I was thinking of Photo V carve too.

[spalted]

Ok,latest attempt:

I tried a new photo, changed it to grey scale, then 2 color

Then I used the newsprint plugin in gimp to give it the dot look.

Michaels idea got me thinking, so I pulled it into wintopo and used it to vectorize the image.

I tried to open a vectorized version in meshlab so I could export it as an stl, and open it with stl importer.

But it's not converting out of wintopo, it's stuck there. It crashes meshlab when I try to open it.

So if anyone cares to follow along step by step, you to can jump through 53 hoops and have nothing to show for it.......lol

Remember folks this is only an experment,.......unless it works.

I don't have a clue what I'm doing, but it seem like I'm getting closer to something that might work. I may never be able to repeat it but........hey, can't worry about the little things I guess......lol