[bentditlevolsen]

Hi all
I have a homemade Wood 3d router and i would love to have some help, regarding Building up a project i can carve.
I have Vectric aspire, but it seems to me that it is very hard to use if you want to make a 3d model from scratch, or even if i use a jpeg vector file.

So is there a program that might be a bit easyer to handle.
Can you please help me find some tutorials so i could learn how to make stuff like the guitar in the pic.Attachment 282788

Thanks a lot Guys and girls

[ger21]

So is there a program that might be a bit easier to handle?

No, not really.

3D modelling requires a tremendous amount of skill and artistic ability. Your best bet is to choose a modeling program, and spend hundreds of hours watching tutorial videos, and practicing.

Or pay someone else to do it for you.

If I had to guess, I would say that 95% (if not higher) of the 3D CNC carving work you see is done with stock or purchased models. Very few people have the ability to create high quality 3D models.

[bentditlevolsen]

Thanks a lot. can you point me in the direction of a good modeling program

No, not really.




3D modelling requires a tremendous amount of skill and artistic ability. Your best bet is to choose a modeling program, and spend hundreds of hours watching tutorial videos, and practicing.

Or pay someone else to do it for you.

If I had to guess, I would say that 95% (if not higher) of the 3D CNC carving work you see is done with stock or purchased models. Very few people have the ability to create high quality 3D models.

[Mike 1948]

Personally, if you want to get into fancy artsy type models, you have, for the price, one of the better ones out there. Like Ger21 said "and spend hundreds(well lots of anyway) of hours watching tutorial videos, and practicing".
Aspire has many hours of tutorials and examples to get you going. You could model the basic guitar and then import a premade model and put in the guitar. Lots of options

Mike

[ger21]

The problem with Aspire and your guitar model is that Aspire is a relief modeler, which means it can't go around the edges. But unless you're cutting it on a rotary axis, that may not matter.

There are a ton of really good modelers available, at a huge range of prices. Some are part of animation packages.
A few are:
Silo
Hexagon
Blender
FormZ
Lightwave
Modo
Moi

There are many others. Some are better at some things than others.

[hub]

If you make one, then I think the best option is to carve by hand.
If you want to make many then purchasing & learning software would make sense.

I use zbrush for sculpting. It's a very powerful software. Modeling that kind of geometry in say rhino, 3ds max, cinema4d etc would be very hard IMO..
Zbrush has a different approach. It's like sculpting/carving by hand in 3D. BUT, mouse & keyboard won't work well... You need a good pressure/tilt sensing tablet & pen for good results..
And some sculpting skills.

[Mike 1948]

The problem with Aspire and your guitar model is that Aspire is a relief modeler, which means it can't go around the edges. But unless you're cutting it on a rotary axis, that may not matter.

There are a ton of really good modelers available, at a huge range of prices. Some are part of animation packages.
A few are:
Silo
Hexagon
Blender
FormZ
Lightwave
Modo
Moi

There are many others. Some are better at some things than others.

Gerry,
I don't want to start anything but Aspire is not just a relief modeler, it can do profiling, pocketing, vcarving etc. In fact I have seen people that have posted guitars in their support forums.
It can project models on to models, so you could project a purchased or homemade model onto a guitar body. That is just some of its capabilities. Plus it can create the toolpaths and post process them.

Mike

[ger21]

it can do profiling, pocketing, vcarving etc.

Those are machining operations, not modeling operations. The above picture is too small to really see, but I do not believe that the top edge of the guitar in the picture can be modeled with Aspire. And certainly not the back side, unless you create separate models for the front and back.

If you have a cube, Aspire only allows you to model one face of the cube. You can cheat along the edges with a 2 rail sweep, but you won't be able to machine them.

Yes, as a relief modeler, Aspire does have a lot of features that most if not all of the modelers I mentioned do not. And all those modelers can do things that Aspire can not. Aspire is indeed a modeler designed for modeling and machining reliefs. As a machining program, it is a good all around machining program.

Fwiw, I happen to be one of the Aspire beta testers.

[awerby]

People on this forum tend to be doing simpler kinds of things, like signs and machine parts, and use programs that are appropriate for them. For generating complex high-relief sculptural things like that guitar, I'd recommend Geomagic Sculpt, which works with a special hardware device, the Touch 3D Stylus, that provides force-feedback so you can feel what you're doing as you're doing it in real time. There's a new inexpensive version of the software which also works with the 3D stylus called Cubify Sculpt that can get you started with this type of modeling.

Carving it is another matter. As was pointed out above, to get the relief to wrap around the edges, you'd need at least a 4-axis machine with considerable Z-height, able to turn the guitar body so the tool could reach it. DeskProto could generate the 4-axis G-code for you. The other approach would require a 5-axis machine, able to tilt and swing the spindle to the appropriate angles.

Andrew Werby
ComputerSculpture.com ? Home Page for Discount Hardware & Software

[dune1982]

I would recomend Moment of Inspiration V3 for the modeling and DeskProto for the creation of NC code. In my opinion it is the most easiest way to get into it.

[jrmach]

BoBCAD's BoBART is pretty sweet for the money.

Plan on spending some time learning though.

I have heard Vectric is good also.

I think you are just going to have to go thru the learning curve,which can be steep,to get the results you want.
or
As Ger said,buy a model.But where's the fun in that ?

[bentditlevolsen]

Thanks a lot all of you.

One last question. Were can i buy the ready made models or even order special costum jobs ??