thinking of purchasing, technique question

[Afisher]

Hi there everyone. I've been looking at these machines ever since I first saw the comercial on tv. I have a background in 3-d game design, and basiclly i was wondering if i could create an object in 3-d, convert it to a depth map, and then import it with good results. I'm going to attemt to attach an image I created, to see if maybe i could get some opinions, if it would work or not. Or maybe someone could even give it a test whirl on the machine (crosses fingers). I imported the image with the trial software, and it looked ok, but i was wondering if it would look better or worse or just like it when actually carved. Game fans may recognize this as the hylian shield from the Legend of Zelda. Feel free to use the image if it works, if anything everyone must know someone who like Zelda.

[BobHill]

I'm not a "gamer" unless "Spider" or "Solitare" counts, and my tired old eyes can just barely see the image, however what I do see makes me think that it would do well in a carving.

Bob Hill
Tampa Florida

[Afisher]

I was playing with the designer software a bit, I thought it looked pretty good in there. Do you think there would be alot of cleanup (i.e. filler, sanding) after the carving. In the software I bumped the depth to about 0.6 to give it some, well, depth. Would this have any negative effect on surface quality and result in more cleanup afterwards. Thanks for the input BOB. *waves from clermont*

[HandTurnedMaple]

The cleanup will depend alot on your wood choice. Oak or pine will probably require some cleaning up. I know Basswood is one of the best handcarving woods, but I haven't been able to try it yet on the CW.

Did you also increase the height when you increased the depth?

[BobHill]

It looks pretty smooth to me, although I'd probably like to give it a bit more depth, which would take some work in PhotoShop to keep the curves nice and round. What you have there, however is pretty not cluttered with tones that should give bit digs and uneven carving. It looks pretty darn good. I set the region to 0.125" as well as the depth for the shield.

Clermont, not all that far away !

Bob

[Jeff_Birt]

As you have guess, the CW basically imports the images as a depth map. I'm not sure if you added any texture to the piece, I would assume the 'rougness comes from the way the heightmap was generated. I have noticed that it seems that these often have a darker band interspersed with ligher ones making for a rough image. It also helps if you make the background transparent (when importing into designer).

[Afisher]

thanks to all, i will have to work on image quality. the height maps i generate tend to have "banding". I will try to rectify that. Are there any suggestions for file type to reduce artifacts, or the bands of grey. This may be in the FAQ somewhere, so I will go take a look. Overall this looks pretty promising. I will most likely have to pick one of these things up when the bank account allows.

[BobHill]

Jeff.

I inverted his image so white replaces the black and LOWERED it where the background was then transparent. The only modification I did to the file was in Designer I added a rectangle and gave it a Carve Region at the same depth as I set the image (0.125"). If you make the image to a different depth than the region, you get the jaggie outline cut to the image.

Afisher, for what you would be doing, I'd use something like CorelDraw to make your inital design, then use it's ability to use Gradient fills for the carving attributes.

Bob

[Jeff_Birt]

Bob, that's basically what I did. I was meaning that if the image is saved with a transparent background then there is no raising/lowering needed to get rid of the background. The method used to produce the depth map does not do an even gradient and that causes a rough image (like lots of bands or pinholes). Most of the smooting I've tried to do in raster programs ends up the same way.

[BobHill]

I have to plead ignorance to the Depth mapping per se, unless it's talking about mapping colors to a transparency in PhotoShop ... and I think that would be the long long way to do things and it would need considerable blurring to even approach smoothness.

Bob