Vectric Customer

I have been playing around with relief carving for about a month now, posted some pics and tips in an earlier post. Since then, I have investigated Solid Modelers (Blender, GMax, Silo, AC3D, etc). They all do a job, but not the job I want to do. This morning I loaded some deSign clipart (thanks to whoever it was that posted on here about them, really good stuff), did a few things over in Corel PhotoPaint, popped the image into PVC, and well, here are the results:

If you want to try this method, here are a few tips:

1) Learn how to use the mask function in your paint program, very important.
2) Use your paint program in 256 shades of gray mode.
3) You can vary heights by painting various shades of gray (this is where being able to use the Mask function come in REAL handy)
4) Set your stepover in PVC to about .01 if you are using a .125 ball end mill.

THIS is exactly what I wanted to be able to do easily. Thanks to the Vectric team, I can do it! The total time to create this was about 30 minutes, with three hours of cutting (I was running at 60 IPM)

Oh, if you are "ramping" in to depth, there is no need for multiple passes, since the cutter only takes .010 per pass anyhow.

Wow

Treischl

Very nice work, good detail. I have seen reference to Corel photo paint in several posts in regards to relief creation using gray scale. Does it have better masking and gray scale creation ability as compared to Photoshop? I have used Photoshop for years and even though I own Corel photopaint I have not spent any time to learn it. If this kind of relief can made from Corel better than Photoshop It will be worth learning. What do you think?? Thanks for the help.

Tom B

Hi Tom,

I have been a Corel user since about Version 2 or so. I have Photoshop, but like you in reverse, have never taken the time to learn it. So, honestly, I am not sure if Corel is easier or not. There is not too much to this process other than getting a feel for using the masks and blending functions. So, I would think it should be just as doable in PS as Corel.

Thanks for the quick response. I think I will load up photopaint and look at the masking function. I have used Corel draw for for over seven years so the interface should look familiar. Thanks again.

Tom B

TReischl

That is awesome. Please keep us updated as you continue to develop this great technique.

Larry

That carving really rocks! Nice job.

Any chance we could see a small sample of the greyscale source image. I'd like to get a better idea of how the shapes translate to the 3d height difference. Thanks in advance.

Great stuff TReischl! Thanks for keeping us informed, very helpful.... must try this technique out.

Can't help but wonder if Tony or Brian had any idea that PVC would be able to do this sort of thing and apparently so effortlessly? Reminds me of when I bought my house, only had a quick glance through initially as I wasn't thinking of buying it then a couple of days later decided to make an offer. The seller agreed and it wasn't till I had the keys some time later that I discovered it had an ensuite bathroom I didn't know existed. This was before I was married obviously!

Well worked out Treischl. very interesting process.

Cheers,
Colin.

Very impressive Ted,
I tried the process in PhotoShop CS but got lost with the mask step.

Defiantly deserves another look.
thanks for sharing your technique.

Chuck

Thanks guys, glad you are all enjoying the thread. I have attached a sample "slice" of what one of these bitmaps look like. Of course, by doing different things you get different results. Probably the most important part of this process is the edge blending. I will elaborate a bit:

After loading your clipart into the paint program, create a mask. The mask keeps the blending process from "bleeding" onto the background. If you want different heights in your carving, do some painting with different shades of gray. This example was blended by using Effects>Blur>Smooth with the setting at 100%. It was repeated about 10X (you repeat in corel by hitting ctrl-F). Then I used Effects>Blur>Gaussian set at 4 pixels 1X. All done.

Remember, you can add lettering or whatever right on top of this image, if you make the lettering whiter than everything else, it will stand out very nicely. You can also use this to add a few details to a standard VCarving.

In other words, if you are put off by the long cutting times for a complete sign using this technique, you can add a few eye popping details using the technique, then do the rest in the normal manner.

And THAT is why I like VCarve/Photo Vcarve and the whole paradigm used by Vectric, it seems like our hands are never tied.

Ted,

The original clip art image you started with was it a vector or raster image? I do not have any of the deSign clip art collections but I do have three of the Vector art mega collections. They are either in AI or EPS format.
Tom B

Good question Tom. Even though the deSign clipart is vector, which I used to size the initial image, everything after that is bitmap. In other words, I scaled the vector image up and then exported it as a jpg bitmap for the work in Corel.

It is possible to just copy and paste from Draw to Paint, but you might find that your image changes size a bit. That is why I export it and then open it.

So, this is good news for the guys who like to work on bitmaps from Dover, etc, they do not have to convert them to vector first. I will load up a Dover clipart image and post here in a bit.

Here is a simple image from Dover Clipart.

Ted,

I thought that was what you did. I could have loaded up an image and figured it out myself. I was aware of this grayscale process for some time but thought it was more limited and so havent spent any time working with it. You have proven I was wrong about the limits to this process. I am retired and can't believe how little time I can squeeze out of a day for projects like this. I don't know how I ever had time to work a full time job. Thanks for sharing your efforts with the rest of us.
Tom B