[t-jacobs]

Hi CNC Zoners,

I am Tom Jacobs, academic researcher in plant biology. We study leaf surface cell development. For our research, we use an optical profiler to obtain high resolution measurements/scans of leaf surface microtopography at the nanometer z-scale. A collaborator has used one of our profiling instrument's .stl output files to make a 4"x4" 3D print of the scan. We want to expand along those lines: more printing, but also CNC milling.

I am interested in hardware/software options for taking .stl-converted scan profiles of leaf surfaces and using a CNC device to whittle out a slab of wood, for example, to generate a hand-held amplification of the microtopography of the leaf surface. Call it art, or education, or a mix of both.

Happy to hear from practitioners of the dark CNC arts about how one might go about doing this.

Thanks!

Tom

[Trotline]

Carving from .stl files is bread & butter for most cnc router users. Most of the software packages in use can do it. If you're interested in buying a turnkey solution, those exist, for instance Rockler's "Shark" cnc machines. It's mostly a matter of defining your workspace requirements, as far as the hardware goes. There are kit machines with much better performance, such as CNC Router Parts' kits.

The variety of hardware available is large, and there's often no one "perfect" answer. The same is true with software. Vectric's offerings are very popular, but they're by no means the only programs that can do the work. MeshCAM, ArtCAM, and Deskproto, among many others, are quite capable of doing what you describe.

Luke

[t-jacobs]

Thanks Luke.
I'm pleased to hear that what I'm envisioning isn't terribly exotic. I should add that .stl is just the file format that I have heard is 'best' for feeding to CNC software/hardware. We can output others and convert, etc. Our collaborator did some manipulations in Rhino (he's an architect) to make it 3D printable.
My only exposure to the CNC/wood direction on this was when I ambushed a seller of CNC chiseled wooden wall plaques (Lords Prayer, etc.) at a local farmers market, told him what I wanted to do, and he sort of rolled is eyes and indicated, "that isn't going to be easy". I suspect he uses some dedicated software that works like a word processor (select font, format etc, then hit, "rout".). I'm encouraged to hear this is well within typical CNC possibility.
Cheers,
Tom

[awerby]

Are these pieces all going to be around 4" x 4" or do you plan to make bigger ones? If not, then a small mill like the Taig should work fine, with one of the mesh-capable CAM programs mentioned above. If you want to make them considerably larger, then a router like the Rockler "Shark" or something similar built from a kit would be more appropriate. Most of those farmer's market guys use pre-made images, like 3d clip art, so they're probably not the ones to ask about something like this.

Andrew Werby
www.computersculpture.com

[t-jacobs]

Thanks Andrew,
No, there's nothing sacred about 4"x4". That's just the size of prototype 3D print our collaborator (= my son, truth be told) produced on a Makerbot at his school. I can certainly see going bigger than that, although I imagine it must take a CNC router a while to chisel out a square foot at pleasingly smooth rez. I'm not looking for high throughput, production output. Just a versatile platform to explore milling out microscopic biological surface topographies at macro, hands-on scale for enjoyment and teaching.
Your website looks like a terrific resource. Thanks for that!
Tom