graphics conversion for engraving

Good luck on this one George. I have tried lots of programs that make all kinds of claims most of them are very weak at best. Corel Draw has a trace program that works ok. You load the bitmap file and it attempts to draw lines around boundaries. Then you export it as dxf file and put it into something you can edit it with. On simple black and white line drawings it usually take's 2 to 4 hrs. to edit the vector file into something you can use in a sign cutting program or cad cam program, I edit mine with a program called winpc sign pro. It works ok. I have never tried any of the really exspensive sign programs like sign lab.I didn't want to pay 5000.00 dollars to find out it didn't work any better than my 1000.00 dollar program. If you find a soloution let me know. Charlie

Just an idea...

add to printers an HP plotter. Have the plotter default to print to disk. The output file will be in HPGL format, that of the plotter.

Load your JPEG and print to the plotter queue.

The key is it is a plotter, not a printer.

Martin

have a look at meshcam (meshcam.com). Will convert to 3d height field (dark is deep, light is shallow), does raster but has other very useful (imho) features.

The real key is manipulation of the image, for which you'll need photoshop etc. Imagine a white dog with a black nose. Not gonna work without turning the nose whiter than the rest of the face.

There are some other image tools that can enhance edges, make textures etc., but count on lots of hours of learning.

I agree with the statement on corel - best to turn the jpg into a vector drawing for many things. Allows you to put stuff on "layers"; vectors are much faster to manipulate (if you get the photo right).

I'm no expert; haven't succeeded in making images do what I want, but would point you to the sheetcam and meshcam yahoo groups for useful lore... / mark

george wrote:

On 19 Dec 2004 18:36:28 -0800, "george" calmly ranted:

CASMATE, about $3,000 the last time I looked (a decade ago). Adobe Streamline, Corel Trace, and others don't fare as well.

I googled this for you:

looks interesting.

-------------------------------------------------------------------- I sent in my $5, so *

why haven't I been 'saved'? * Graphic Design - Humorous T-shirts

Does your machine only read HPGL files or can it handle 'G-Code' instructions too?

If it were CNC based I could heartily recommend an application for engraving/milling/routing and plasma cutting primarily sheet materials (SheetCam).

You would still have to have a valid HPGL or DXF file to use it though.

DeskArt is an application that comes to mind for converting a BMP or JPG to a vector drawing or for generating the G-Code but may be overkill for you application.

Some signmakers use software that does this. See if they'll do it for you.

Shawn

I use scan2cad from

, I scan drawings, save as bmp and then convert to vector. I then run the vector in Supercam and use a plasma cutter table to cut designs from steel

Do you have a CAD package that produces product ? - can you import the graphic into the CAD package and then just plot it or CAM it.

Martin

Thanks to all of you that have taken the time to reply to my questions.

I have a very simple set-up that is homemade. I built an x-y table using some stepping motors. The z axis is currently just up/down. I am driving this using my computer's parallel port using a program I wrote to interpret HPGL. The set-up I have works fine for the simple 2-D engraving I am doing. I am just doing this as a hobby and cannot afford some of the options mentioned. I am sure they would be wonderful. I would be interested to expand my hobby to include xyz milling sometime. At that point it problably would make sense to use some sort of CAD/CAM software and drive the hardware using G-Code. Until I can afford it though I plan to just stick with my current set up or some variation of it.

Does anyone know of some share-ware or low priced packages that may be helpful?

Thanks

Have a look at

this is a very affordable CAM package that will import DXF, HPGL or Excellon files and allow you to set up tool paths and cutters and export G-code to drive the hardware.

For a simple engraver it may even be possible to control it directly from SheetCam (I know the author is doing just that with a simple engraver but not sure how he interfaced it).

There is also a very active support/users group over at...

HTH

RasterFratz. $75

Fred Smith - IMService