Adding a bitmap to a 3d model?

[GeneMpls]

I do a lot of things with Aspire as, over the years, I have become fairly proficient at it. I am retired but heavily involved with my old sign company and often do renderings of 3D signs that may be machined or cut on the laser and as we do wide format printing we often incorporate color prints into the signs as well. Is it possible to 'paste' a bitmap to a layer in Aspire? When I add a bitmap it lies in the background and what I would like to do is to mask it with a vector and then bring it forward [up] to the proper location in my 3D model. This is a quick 3D model to show my peeps what I am thinking- before spending more quality time on it.

[ohiolyons]

Try the Create Component from BitMap

[GeneMpls]

I will try that but I really want the bitmap to still look like a print within the 3D model. Thanks Gene

[Adrian]

As far as I'm aware the bitmap can only be fully in the background or fully in the foreground. There's no way of masking it with vectors other than the whole shape rather than just parts of it. You would need to use a graphics package to do what you want with the 3D model exported as a bitmap I think.

[GeneMpls]

Thank you- I am a retired signmaker so I have done this a lot, just gonna be harder on this one. Gene

[Verucktjim2]

It would really be great if you could export a rendered 3D toolpath from this program to another. like v-carved letters. Any one know of a way of doing this? Thank you. Jimmy

[Adrian]

It would really be great if you could export a rendered 3D toolpath from this program to another. like v-carved letters. Any one know of a way of doing this? Thank you. Jimmy

You can export a bitmap rendering of the toolpathed item by clicking the Save Preview Image on the Preview Toolpaths dialog or from Save Shaded Image on the View menu.

If you want it in a 3D format then you can use the Create Component from Toolpath Preview on the the Model/Create Component From... menu. You can then use Export to STL on the model menu to export the converted preview as an STL, wavefront (OBJ) file or as POV ray trace file.