Re: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] How to go from 2.5 D to real 3 D

Hi Tom:

I see you intend to try Master5 anyway, so if you'd like to see what 3d
looks like in sinple form, try the demo and load a Jpg or Bmp into the
engraving section. It will create a 3d engraving by converting your picture
to Monochrome, then applying a 3d movement to it by interpolating the 256
shades of grey to 256 levels of Z. Playing with it can help to show some of
the drawbacks to 3d (actually the only drawback I can think of is the time),
3d can take enormous amounts of time, 24 hours is not unusual for a complex
3d surface, although this depends on your machine. Generally, the faster the
machine the better for wood, with metal the speed is not as great a factor
as you tend to cut metal much slower. 3D is usally a compromise between how
fine you'd like it to be, and how fine you can afford the time for.
As you can see from the responces to your question, 3d is something
different to most users. This usually correlates with whether they use
surfaces, or engravings or Solids to define their work. Usually, at least in
my experience, 3d is done better as a mix of techniques. You may for example
wish to 2.5D as much as possible to rough the piece to be as close as
possible and then 3d the parts of the piece which require nice contours,
this generally speeds up the process significantly.

You can also do 3D mathmatically for artistic machining, fractal
curves, quadratic equations and such can produce interesting toolpaths when
you just plug their output into G-Code for milling. Of course you'll never
make a usefull machine part this way, but you can make some very interesting
3D pieces. Then there's topographics maps that when scanned and made into a
BMP can produce some interesting 3d maps from a picture.

Good luck,
Art
Master5 Software
http://users.andara.com/~fenerty/master.htm