I feel like an idiot.

[cholme@mac.com]

Ok, I am pretty good at learning software, but I feel like I am missing something. I understand using the stock patterns, but frankly I didn't buy the machine to make standard carvings.

Aside from the "glitches" in 1.130 running on Mac 10.5, it is just not real intuitive.

Does anyone know of any good tutorials? The ones on the CW website aren't all that helpful.

I could really use some direction.

Thanks,

Chris

[Deolman]

Have you gone out to www.carvewright.com and clicked on support? There are tutorials, Tips and Tricks, and FAQs. Have you tried a search here on the forum? (Tip: sometimes you have to use quotes to search.) There really is a lot of information available.

[TIMCOSBY]

and click on the help file and read ALL of it. that will help greatly in your understanding.

[mtylerfl]

Hello,

You can also learn a lot by reading the back issues of the Tips & Tricks Newletters. You can download them for free at anytime. Of particular importance for new users are the Dec '07 Issue and the Jan '08 Issue. These will teach you how to avoid common "pilot errors" when first starting out, and teach you proper maintainance as well. So you won't miss anything in the future, subscribe to the free newsletter by visiting http://www.carvewright.com and filling in the "Join Our Mailing List" box.

The Forum probably provides the most collective information - just about every question has been asked and answered here. Just use search and/or post your questions if you're not able to locate an answer.

Sometimes you may want to speak to someone directly instead. You can always call...

...Jason (http://www.littleredwoodshop.com/73701.html),
...or Michael (http://www.carvebuddy.com/contactus.html),
...or one of the techs at Carvewright (http://www.carvewright.com/cms/contact-us)

There is plenty of help available and a great willingness to lend a hand to one another.

[cholme@mac.com]

I appreciate all the input and I have checked out the tutorials and the tips and tricks.

Let me give an example.

Lets say I want to create the Trout Clock (which is for sale in the Project store), How do you do that? I have tired importing from a photo (see below), and the results are not predictable. For instance, the image of my daughter below, when I actually carved it, her nose was concave rather than convex, but the rest of her was ok. Obviously, the software extrapolated from the original photo and decided what was inward and outward... how do you customize carvings? I have seen amazing work on this site and others, but nowhere is there information on how to create your own designs.

I love the machine, but I am getting really frustrated. Again, I am usually really good at figuring out new software.. and I am used to a variety of 3d cad programs, but this one has me stumped.

Thanks,

Chris

[badger]

I appreciate all the input and I have checked out the tutorials and the tips and tricks.

Let me give an example.

Lets say I want to create the Trout Clock (which is for sale in the Project store), How do you do that? I have tired importing from a photo (see below), and the results are not predictable. For instance, the image of my daughter below, when I actually carved it, her nose was concave rather than convex, but the rest of her was ok. Obviously, the software extrapolated from the original photo and decided what was inward and outward... how do you customize carvings? I have seen amazing work on this site and others, but nowhere is there information on how to create your own designs.

I love the machine, but I am getting really frustrated. Again, I am usually really good at figuring out new software.. and I am used to a variety of 3d cad programs, but this one has me stumped.

Thanks,

Chris

For the trout clock. It comes I beleive as an mpc file a project already created with the patterns. I would image the patterns will include the fish which will carve both front and back side of the board so when it is cut out it is a 3d carving. The branch and the base. Once all items are carved out then it would be assembled.

The image you provided has been asked soooo many times. As Mtylerfl stated you will really need to read all the tips and tricks to get a handle on it. It is based on grayscale. Those images (jpg very bad) contain many pixels of information on different gray scale which will base the depth of either how high or how low the carving bit with carve at.

Almost all images just entered into designer will produce a bad carve. A design program is needed to enhance, draw or create your own designs using the grayscale approach.


There are also numerous post on that subject. So people here have also provided their own freeware that can help create some of those that include how to make celtic knots, chains and other items in grayscale that produce nice results.

Other than that it just involves alot of reading if you plan on designing your own patterns. Good luck.

[brdad]

I was having a bit of trouble understanding how the CW handled images as well. But I have figured out the basics now. And I mean the very basics, but it's a big step.

The CW has no way of knowing the nose is concave or convex from a photo. The only reason you know is because you have experienced noses in a 3D world. So the only way the CW can tell is if you change the image to something it can interpret.

The CW will determine the depth of an individual point by the gray scale value of the image at that point. White being the depth entered for the carving, and black being the least deep at value determined by the height setting (but I am not sure yet how the CW calculates that). These values can be reversed using the invert function.

So, in your baby pic, there is a white dot on the nose. That will be a deep carve unless you invert the image. But then you'll probably find other things that aren't correct.

It helped me to make a greyscale project and play wit that in designer. It might help to download it and play with it.

Dave

[ChrisAlb]

Figuring out how the CW calculates the depth change "per shade of gray" made me nuts for months when I began. Being that I create patterns with graphic programs, I really needed to figure it out.

I came up with a formula for it a few months ago and it seems to hold true for me.

It is.....

Board thickness, divided by 255 equals depth change per shade of gray.

So if you have a 3/4" board, it would be...

.75" / 255 = .00294" change per shade of gray.

[brdad]

Figuring out how the CW calculates the depth change "per shade of gray" made me nuts for months when I began. Being that I create patterns with graphic programs, I really needed to figure it out.

I came up with a formula for it a few months ago and it seems to hold true for me.

It is.....

Board thickness, divided by 255 equals depth change per shade of gray.

So if you have a 3/4" board, it would be...

.75" / 255 = .00294" change per shade of gray.

Ah, thanks. I understand height a bit better now with that clue. But you mean depth of the pattern, not thickness of the board, correct?

The formula seems correct when the pattern is not resized. When I was trying to figure out how height worked, I was using a resized pattern and what was supposed to be a .75 total height pattern was only .67 once resized. My guess is the software is scaling the height proportionally to the amount the pattern is resized.

While this makes some sense, it seems at times it'd be nice to tell the software to keep the original height or to set an actual height for a particular pattern. I understand that's where being able to control the %height allows you to correct these adjustments, but there is no quick way to tell the software to have the lowest part of the carve at .75 and the highest point at .25 - you'd just have to adjust the %height until you got the desired effect. It also helps to realize in the lower left part of the designer screen it shows what the current depth your cursor is over - it took me a few days to discover that.

(Correct me if I am wrong - lotta talk from someone who hasn't used his machine yet!)

[ChrisAlb]

Ah, thanks. I understand height a bit better now with that clue. But you mean depth of the pattern, not thickness of the board, correct?

(Correct me if I am wrong - lotta talk from someone who hasn't used his machine yet!)

Nope, I meant thickness of the board. Think about it. If the board is .75" thick, you have 255 levels of gray to work with. So it's .75 / 255.

If the board is 1" thick, you still have 255 shades of gray so it's 1 / 255.

Works every time for me. Now when you say "resized" do you mean like stretching the pattern on the board? Like if you drop it on the board and it's 2" wide by 2" tall and you drag it bigger or smaller? This is changing the "height" of the pattern?