3D carving questions

[wanderingtruckie (terry - oval lane creations)]

bear with me on this , my brains bit retarded at moment wires not connecting, i know its a simple explanation i just cant see it

so my 1st trial came out ok ,

don’t know if it was just a fluke or what but since than i cant get files to run right

i import stl , the highlighted part iss that final height of my relife ?

once imported i dragged to make file bigger, to get any depth in preview i have to go to min of 8mm depth

is there a way to work out increase in depth by resizing or is it just trial and error looking at preview tilli it looks ok

nxt question finishing pass tool

after roughing pass it looks like this

is depth per pass non existent in 3d relief , i have dop at 2mm ,its going like 6mm deep at a time ? i have burnt out tool bits because of this its way to deep

i interoperated roughing pass would be like relife finish pass would remove all material except what is put in depth to leave , than finish pass would be done with say 1 mm ball tapered etc

guess i read that wrong

what am i doing wrong in my set up or is it in my stl files

trialz1.mage (201.7 KB)

please reply in lamin terms , my screwed up brains in overload

im almost at point of giving up on 3d relife

[MikeyH (Mike Hembrey)]

I have not tried to actually tried 3D milling yet (been way to busy, but your file interests me), but I have been following the postings closely. It seems to me that any depth range info is in the depth map image. I am not sure you can override that with a setting in MillMage. Otherwise you could take a standard flat B/W image and add depth to it with MillMage.

I suspect you got lucky with the first one, Beginner’s Luck?

[wanderingtruckie (terry - oval lane creations)]

@MikeyH

Otherwise you could take a standard flat B/W image and add depth to it with MillMage.

how would you do that, without ending up with dot matrix if ay importing hi res png set at say 600 dpi it looks like this it finds every pixle a 300mm x 300 carving is 197 hrs

been doing photography for yrs , so im pretty good with Photoshop , had play round with converting to netural dentissty to convert to depth map but than to convert to depth map that’s a whole nother rabbit hole , i dont have brainpower for that at present

[LightBurn (Oz)]

There is no pass depth in 3D relief carving - the assumption is that you’ll do a roughing pass first if you need to, and that will clear the bulk of material out.

The “Depth Cutoff” value will have to be explained by @Brodie, but I think it is what point of the 3D model to cut off from the front.

The model itself will have an original size, and that cutoff value is related to that. For example, if you imported a 3d sphere, it would be the same height, width, and depth, but half of the depth is behind it. If you were looking at it from above, it would look like this:

If you are viewing the model from the little red dot, you can see the front part of the sphere (in black), but none of the back part is visible (the gray), so there’s no point in including that in the depth map. So, the Depth Cutoff value is the range shown in green.

You also want to equalize the depth map, otherwise the resulting map will go from black to white over the range of the original model, NOT the range you chose to cut it off from. You want the end result to show black to white, meaning you have the best possible depth detail in the image, and more, that the “max depth” you pick will correspond to the black parts of the image.

If your image only goes from pure white to mid gray, the “Max Depth” value is where black would end up, and if your image doesn’t have any actual black in it, you’ll only get part way to the “Max Depth” value, making it harder to plan out the cuts.

To give a more concrete, and easy to follow example, here’s a simple gradient from black to white:

I set it up with a max depth of 15mm, and 3mm depth per pass in the roughing. That means I’ll get a pass a 3mm, one at 6mm, one at 9mm, and one at 12mm. If the image had lots of areas of solid black I’d probably also get a final black pass, but this one doesn’t, so it’s only showing 4 passes outputting. The black is the deepest part:

The idea with the roughing pass is to clear the bulk of the material, and leave a bit for the finishing pass to clean up.

Like this:

The finishing pass is always within whatever the “depth per pass” of the roughing operation was of the final surface, assuming the roughing bit could fit everywhere.

[wanderingtruckie (terry - oval lane creations)]

@LightBurn

I set it up with a max depth of 15mm, and 3mm depth per pass in the roughing. That means I’ll get a pass a 3mm, one at 6mm, one at 9mm, and one at 12mm

that right there is half my problem im going to deep on roughing pass, treating it like a normal pocket doing max depth cut, that’s why so much material iss being left behinf

boom now im getting what i was expecting not like my 1st pic

@LightBurn

The finishing pass is always within whatever the “depth per pass” of the roughing operation was of the final surface, assuming the roughing bit could fit everywhere.

so if roughing pass is set at 3mm doc finishing pass will be set at 3mm also

in retrospect smaller doc on roughing means being able to do quicker feed rate for both operations cutting time dramatically

in some instants would running 2 roughing passes be beneficial eg 6mm than say 3mm

would the 3mm run over the whole design or only areas that the 6 mm cant get to, like how a rest pocket operates

cheers for spelling that out for me OZ

[wanderingtruckie (terry - oval lane creations)]

played with setting roughing at 2mm doc with stock to leave 1.5mm final depth 10mm in preview finish show some roughing passes( green), would i be right to assume this is issue in the stl not a MM problem

if i change rough final depth to 8mm 2mm per pas 1.5mm to leave most of it disappears

trialz2.mage (201.9 KB)

[MikeyH (Mike Hembrey)]

You make it look so easy. This explanation helps a lot.

[parsec (FerAS)]

@wanderingtruckie

make file bigger

Maybe you can try to modify the 3D stl, increase size and resolution, fix triangles mesh, maybe depth with Thinkercad and/or MeshLab (both free), or online, before importing into MillMage.
.

e.g.:
This stl has very little depth, increasing the Final Depth the details are the same, it only increases the wood eaten around and increase the Op time.
FD=6mm

FD=20mm

.
.
If I restrict the Op with an outline shape, the depth auto maxs out at the depth of the stl details “cutoff”:

FD=6mm

FD=20mm

[parsec (FerAS)]

A 3D preview is here:

Relief questions

I think the algo works well. Example: I designed a 50mm sphere, so only have a “visible” 25mm Z. Set a Relief Op to 25mm depth and the preview is correct: [image]

[wanderingtruckie (terry - oval lane creations)]

im picking that will be my next mission learning how to modify stl

after i master the basics of 3d relief, ill run the same file over and over till i sort it