Looking for some flourish...

[Mike-S]

The jagginess is where you have true vertical walls and is do to the pixel based s/w. Try Michael's suggestions. It doesn't take much to remove the roughness; basically just trace around the outline with the smoothing tool.

[adam_m]

I'm getting ready to assemble my model and have a question about material thickness and model thickness and how to setup up the mill.

My base model when I hover my cursor over a portion of the model shows the Z height at -0.9 but the 'Job Setup' screen shows the thickness of 2.75. Does that mean if I zero out Z on the top of the stock that its going to cut -0.9 to the top of the model?

Assuming I want to cut this in different thickness of materials how do I cope with that?

[adam_m]

Anyone have any input on my last question about stock setup..?

Do I recall a Vectric video somewhere about this question?

[Mike-S]

Does that mean if I zero out Z on the top of the stock that its going to cut -0.9 to the top of the model?

If you move your model all the way to the top of the material, the deepest part will be -0.9.
If you push the model down (see below), more material will be removed above the model.

[adam_m]

I'm assuming Vectric uses the material thickness when calculating the Gap above or below the model then.

So, assuming we used your model, if I set the Gap below the model to be 1" the model would then be cut on top of that and you would need a board of at least 1.75" thick?

Is there a way then to find the highest point in your model without having to hover over each point?

Adam,

[highpockets]

Look at Material Setup on the Toolpath tab.

[TReischl]

You may be overthinking this.

You are setting your Z zero to the top of the material. According to your post.

If the dialog shows your model some distance below the top of the material, then that is what will happen unless you move the little slider and make the model go to the top.

Most folks either put the model at the very top, zero gap, or .015 or so gap to make sure no mysterious flat spots appear because the stock is not uniform.

I have never been sure where some of the larger gaps come from, but I think they appear after fiddling around with model thickness controls....never bothered to really find out because I usually set my gap to .015 and do not worry about where it came from.

I find that I have far fewer headaches if I do not try to figure out where some number I am not interested in came from or how it was calculated, I just do not care, I know what I want the gap to be so I set it to that number.

Edit: The highest point in your model is at zero if you set the gap to zero. Sounds strange, but you can create a component, a pocket that is .25 deep and the thickness is .25. So far, so good. Then drop another component on top of it and make that component .5 thick. It will look like the second one is above the surface. But when you set the gap to zero and machine it, that first component will be .5 deep, not .25. If you give that a try it will help in wrapping the brain around how this all works.

[adam_m]

Many thanks for the posts, I think my dilemma was that I was starting my material setup from the top and not from the bottom and that was throwing me for a loop. Since I wanted the base to be a certain thickness I was having a hard time using the top as a starting point but using the bottom was much easier.

I'm finishing this model (finally...) and just wanted to ask what approach I should take with the banner and its text. I've modeled it in in 3D which includes the text but the problem I seem to be running into is when I test the carving and create a toolpath for the project it want's to try and carve the text with the smallest tool in the job, makes sense. Of course the text will be washed out... etc.

Since I'm not wanting to run a .020 carving bit against the entire project is there a better approach to carving the banner? Should I not include the text in the 3D model and add it in the final project so that I can select the vectors and carve it separately? Does that make sense?

[joeporter]

It looks like the text is V-Carved; if that is the case, just "Project Onto 3D Model" and carve away...joe

[adam_m]

Joe,

The model already has the text combined with it. So, when I import this into my main project its essentially a complete piece.

I'm uncertain what you mean by "project onto 3D model"? Should I create the 3D model without the text and then add that in my final project and the project that onto the model?

Adam,

[joeporter]

That is what I would do...I have seen this in one of the early tutorials. The text could be part of the 3D model or it could be V-Carved, each has it'd own look, but the V-Carve was much cleaner and sharper and, of course, quicker and that is what the author (James Booth) chose to do...joe

[Mike-S]

Should I create the 3D model without the text and then add that in my final project and the project that onto the model?

If you can remove the text, make the model that way.
Then you need the text as vectors. Those can then be V-carved by "Project tool path onto 3D model" as below.

[adam_m]

I'll go ahead and remove the text in the model and then re-add when needed.

Thanks.

Adam,

[adam_m]

So my project is nearing completion and I found that I'm having a problem with the inner and outer ovals of the model and somehow in translation it's lost its shape and they are now jagged.

So the first image shows that I drew the oval vectors and they are shaped correctly.

The second image shows the jaggedness of the image as the project has progressed. I think I know what happened there as I added "Bark" and merged the item with the inner oval but that shouldn't have impacted the outer oval.

So how can I redraw the outer oval vector in space matching almost what is currently there, just a hair smaller. I need to have a smooth perimeter on the model.

Thanks for any input.

Adam,

[dealguy11]

Have you lost the original oval vectors? I assume you must have used a vector to create the frame in the first place. If you still have those vectors, can't you just offset that inward slightly?

Issues like this are why I normally move all of the construction vectors to an invisible layer after construction of the components is complete.