How do I do this?

[JimStaley]

I have a black-white bitmap image (see attachment) that I would like to carve and have the background even with a circular carved region. I wish to have the circular carved region surrounding the bitmap image to be .5" deep. I haven't found a way to make the black on the image also 0.5" deep and the white regions deeper enough to make a detailed carving. Any help would be appreciated.

[cmorlier]

Looks like you forgot to attach your image. Post it and I will take a look.

Or if it is easier for you, email it to me at the link below.

[JimStaley]

I guess the attach didn't work because you don't accept bitmaps. I will convert to jpeg. Here's more info. I set depth of bitmap at .640 and height at 50 to give me the difference between surface and cuts that looks good to me. Tyat gives me a depth of .5 on the flat portiopns. I want to rout a circle that's .5 so the carvbing is smooth with the circle.

[cmorlier]

I've attached my attempt at what you described.

When I imported the image, I first inverted it and then lowered it a few times. The jpg file has more than just black and white, so there was a little noise arount the edges when I only lowered it once. If your bitmap is pure black and white, you may only need to lower once. I then saved the pattern to the library.

I then placed the pattern on the board, centered it, set the depth to 0.5", and changed the feathering to none. At this point, I noticed some of the detail was getting messed up by the bit so I scaled the pattern up some. You may want to play around with the Bit Optimization, I left it at None in the attached project, but Best may be a better choice. I also reduced the height from 100 to 10 to help avoid bit effects, caused by the taper of the bit.

Finally, I added a circle, centered it on the board, and chose "Carve Region" with the depth set to 0.5". Then I expanded the circle, until it just hid the pixelated edges of the pattern.

When you import images, the designer imports it at 128 pixels per inch, which is higher than images are often display on monitors (typically 72 pixels per inch). If you need to enlarge pattern from the image, the pixels get stretched accordingly and the pixelation may become apparent. This is especially true on images that have abrupt black to white transitions. Images that have smooth transitions will probably appear better when scaled up.

Hope this helps.

[JimStaley]

Thanks, but I knew how to do that. I don't want the pattern inverted. Inverting the pattern makes small features stand in relief. I want the small features cut below the surface. Can you do that?

[cmorlier]

Starting with what I did before, right click on the pattern (not the circle) and change the Merge Style to Subtractive. Note: with some patterns it may be easier to do this from the Carving List.

[JimStaley]

THANKS! That's exactly what I want. Now I am going to start from scratch to see if I can do it myself. I am hazy about the "lowering" function, so I will have to play around.

Thanks, again.

[Matty]

My attempt with your image

Matty

[Juno2]

Wow, even if it isnt what he meant, it looks very nice!

I gave a try at tweeking it a little.

[soomro]

Wow Juno, your attempt looked real good. I wish I could manipulate images like that. If you feel like teaching, I am ready to learn anytime.

Thanks
M