Rough edges on 3D dish shape

[Greengecko]

I'm trying to make a tray shape using the Flat Rectangle in clipart. I don't know how to avoid these rough edges (see pic).....help please! By the way, I'm totally new to the CNC world....

[highpockets]

Add a Zero Plane to the Component tree.

[Pete Cyr]

What highpockets said......then bake .....then smooth around 80%

[highpockets]

Pete, VCP doesn't have Smooth and Bake.

[Pete Cyr]

Oh, well then that won’t work..hmmm

[highpockets]

Whoops!!!
My bad, I spoke before I looked. VCP does have Bake and Smooth...

[Greengecko]

That did it! I had to play around with the numbers, plus/minus, etc., but in the end it looked smooth. I still don't get what the zero plane does if you are only working on a 1-sided piece -- can someone explain that?

[sharkcutup]

This might help!

Sharkcutup

[martin54]

Very time consuming 3D cutting that as a model, you would be better using a pocket cut with a Bowl bit or a radiused endmill if you don't have either of those then you could do it with an endmill & a ball nose bit. use the largest ball nose you have, offset inwards by the radius of your endmill, cut your pocket to depth with an endmill using the offset vector & then do a profile cut inside the line using your ball nose bit. You may have a bit of sanding to do to remove witness marks where the 2 join with this method but probably still quicker than a 3D toolpath.

[dealguy11]

This is how I understand use of the zero plane. The point of the zero plane in this situation is to provide a reference for VCarve as to how to handle the edge of the component. Components are essentially "pixel" based - they consist of a bunch of points, each of which has a height from 0 associated with it. Everything that is not a component in the model is undefined space for purposes of the carving toolpaths. If you have a component sitting in the middle of your project with undefined space all around it, then the edges just sort of drop off into undefined space, and VCarve has to guess as to how to deal with that edge. Often the guess is wrong, so you get the little spikes all around the component. When you create a zero plane, it now is defined space with a definite height associated with it, and VCarve can figure out exactly how to blend the edge of the component with the defined area of the zero plane.

[Rcnewcomb]

Here is anancient post that explains it -- before we called it a Zero Plane.

Identifying and eliminating software generated chatter marks