I did another relief engraving. My results are getting more consistently acceptable.
Wil this one ( 80W CO2 laser ) I did,
First pass
300mm/S
10% to 65%
Gamma .8
contrast +2
enhanced radius 4
Enhancement amount 100
Second pass
200mm/S
14% to 35%
Gamma 1
Contrast 0
same enhancement
I twiddle some adjustments based on the shading and detail I see.
My second pass I try to dial in to bring out more of the fine surface detail.
This was in a piece of Walnut ( I think )
Wow, that’s amazing!
Beautiful piece of work.
Thanks for sharing.
Very nice! I love the depth! I assume that you’re keeping Z constant while you’re running your exposure.
How much air assist do you have running? I would guess that you’d need quite a bit to clear out all the waste.
Also, what line pitch do you use?
I do not use Z axis movement on these.
Air assist is not full open, probably too subjective to describe. I just open enough to hear air flow.
I set to 600 DPI, .042 mm line interval
As weird as it might sound, post cleaning I use an electric toothbrush with a baking soda and peroxide toothpaste. Works well.
That’s beautiful work. Is there a process summary available that one can follow?
Is your source material a depth map similar to that used for dot picture stereograms?
If so, I may have to dust off my Blender and learn how to create them from the ground up.
While sorting out my process, I’ve been grabbing images from here to experiment on,
https://3axis.co/bmp/3d-relief-art/
yeah, at some point I want to figure out how to do this with Blender or some other tool.
Thanks for the info, it will be useful. How did you come up with that concoction? I wondered why the walnut looked bleached. It looks good.
I tried just brushing with a wire brush and could never get to everything and sometimes broke off fine detail. I happened to look at my toothbrush and thought why not. I thought a fine abrasive ( baking soda ) and peroxide would work well so gave it a go. Does the job. I’m sure a baking soda and water slurry would work well also. I use a rotating brush head with a light touch.
The walnut looks lighter in the photo than in real life, it’s not really bleached out.
Nice work! Curious has anyone done this with a Diode laser? Any examples? I have an Endurance laser that I’d love to attempt this but not sure if I’m wasting my time or not? Thanks
Joel, in your previous posting you had your power values in percentage, in this posting you have your power values listed in Watts. Are they both accurate or was one of the postings using the wrong units?
Oops, these values should be percentage too.
Phew! Thanks. That’s what I was hoping 
I finally got a chance to finish my first attempt at 3D carving with the laser. Thanks to @joel1, I got a huge headstart at trying this! I have a smaller laser, 40W, but was actually able to use his exact parameters except for the exposure speed, which I cut exactly in half. I played around with the various parameters, but, in the end, found that this last set that joel1 posted worked well.
I first tried these on Hard Maple and they came out ok, but I wanted the largest size piece I could fit in my laser and I didn’t have any single piece of maple large enough. After digging through my stash, I found a piece of Red Grandis that was a good size and tried it. I was pleasantly surprised by the ‘chocolate’ color it produced and went with it!
Here’s the piece with a Wenge frame. This is a birthday gift for my daughter. Finish is a couple of coats of Waterlox Original Sanding Sealer, medium sheen.
Nice, I hope your daughter loves it. Glad my posts were able to help.
Joel
Hi Joel, the posts help many people like me who hasn’t gone down this Road as of yet, but when I do, you will be a reference for sure 
Nice work, both you guys 
