3d relief carvings from photos, is it possiable?

[Cut and Dry]

Hello everyone,
Just me with another newbie CNC question. What programs would I have to get in order to make 3-D relief carvings of pictures (family pictures) and of pictures of animals? I have V carve Pro, Cut 3d and Photo V carve. I've tried a few pictures in the photo v carve, but so far I've only been able to figure out how to carve into the wood and those windup with all those crosshatch lines and I'm not really impressed with this program so far. I have watched some of the tutorials (over and over again), and I have picked up a small amount but I am a tactile learner (demonstrated for me one or two times with my hands on and I got it). I realize I could not learn everything overnight; however, I simply do not think that it should be that hard to take a photograph of a person and copy it in wood and make it halfway look like the person. I followed the tutorial and did it as the video was going of the 2 puppies but mine turned out looking like just a bunch of dots? Any help would be greatly appreciated, thank you in advance for your advice.

[martin54]

I don't really use photo v carve so can't really help that much but often a picture can help people sort out your problems better than a written explanation, you might get better help if you could post pictures of your end results & the settings you used.
I do know from reading other threads that setting the z height accurately is very important & the choice of engraving/vbit/bullnose cutter will make a big difference as well. Type of wood will make a difference as will it's flatness. Did you surface the wood before starting your carving to make sure it is perfectly flat?

[BDM]

Photo V Carve will do what you want, maybe not perfectly, but it will do it. The trick is to treat your project like you're doing a litho, except use wood and you don't have to go so deep (i.e. you're not looking through the wood). Use the PVC preview function, select a wood for your material, and then make the line spacing really close and see what you get. You can also play around with depth of cut to enhance the 3D look. It also helps if you do a little work on the photo before using it, for instance removing the background.

[graffix11]

Anything is possible i guess? lol only because this is a photo of a hand drawing. It was drawn trying to mimic a grey scale height map. Typically there is no 3d info in a standard jpeg photo. The software turns the image to a black n white pic, then assigns height based on the shades of color from black grey to white or you could invert it. Here we used black paper and white to draw, but white paper could be used. I find the software is very sensitive. With a little practice you could get decent results with just smoothing. Im not sure if that tool is available in Cut3D but is in Aspire. Hope it helps.

[Adrian]

See this thread for how to do it using PhotoVCarve - http://www.vectric.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=18336