Hello All,
I am building my own cnc router. I want to start using it to cut out many of the plans and patterns I have accumulated over the years. I know this topic was talked about in 2007 but I haven't found any recent topics on the subject. I want to know how I can get my plans into a program and keep them to scale. For example: my rc plans for boats and planes. I read that I need to trace them for best results. What is the most economical way to do this? I checked out digitizers on the internet and most of them are 2k or better. I have a lot of fretwork patterns also so I would need a minimum of a 24" by 36" table. Hasn't any one come up with a software yet that will import these things without tracing them? I have checked out some software that will take a bmp or jpeg and turn it into raster format. Will something like that work for my needs? I have checked out the Vectric software and I would like to buy the vcarve pro because I want to do wood carving down the road. I have downloaded all the trial versions of the Vectric software. For now I have only played around a little with the Vcarve and Photocarve programs. So far Vcarve isn't doing what I want it to. I plan to run the machine with Mach3. What do you people suggest? I have a very limited budget so I can't spend much. That is my biggest problem.