Inlay on a 3D Surface?

[4DThinker]

I'm relatively new to Aspire. Just figured out that 2D and 2.5 D toolpaths can be mapped to 3D surfaces. Wondering if anyone has figured out how to v-inlay on a 3D surface? For example, the slightly bowed front of a drawer? I'm thinking the mirrored raised version would have to be mapped to a negative version of the initial 3D surface, but something tells me doing it this way is not ideal. On flat surfaces both the positive and negatives halves of a v-inlay cut down into the surface. Doing the same on a curve would leave the raised parts offset by their thickness, and slightly out of alignment.

So does anyone know an "easy" way to make a negative of a 3D surface, then add say .1" to it? Am I even on the right track?

Thanks
4D

[rscrawford]

It can be done. Here is an example I did on a concave surface (a bowl shape).

You have to model both the male and female blanks exactly the same, just opposite (two rail sweep worked the best for me), then I used my own method of v-carving the female, then prism carving the male, offsetting the vectors by .08", and v-carving between the original and offset vectors starting at the depth of the prism cut (this just extends the cut deeper without affecting the original prism cut).

To make the 3D surface, just draw the vector and put the 'tails' going one way for the female part and the other way for the male part. You don't have to add .1 to it, because you want the BOTTOM of the male cut to match the TOP of the female cut. It will automatically turn out this way by projecting the cuts to the 3D surface.

[CraigW]

I've been experimenting with that in recent days. It involves inverting the grayscale image in Photoshop.
Looks very promising and I will report back . . .