Lithophane, Shadow box, photo carving, and embossing model creation are just some of the types of parts you can make with BobART. Using a color photo, you can create a 3D emboss model based on the “gray scale” the light and dark areas define the ups and downs of the model. Machining this model as a negative and back lighting it is how you create a lithophane.

You would think you would need a tight step over, but you really don’t. Take a look at the tool marks up close.

In this example I used wax, but corian is the choice material.

This video walks through the steps of creating and machining a lithophane using V25 Mill Standard and BobART:

This is a project I worked on with Ken, done on a 4th axis. The part came over as a print and needed to be drawn up flat. From there we used 4 Axis Wrapping to profile cut the “windows.” We went back and forth a few times on the post to get everything working right. I think Ken spent an all night running the job to hit the delivery date the next day. Nice little part and it was fun to work on.

Using measure entity you can pick a line or arc and find out its properties. This is an extremely useful feature to find out the length of arc segments. Once you have the length of the arc segment to can lay the geometry out flat. In this example we were working off a 2D print, so it took a little extra work. If we would have started with a Solid we could have used the unwrap feature. That would have saved me a lot to time because the Unwrap will lay the work out flat automatically.

The Unwrap function is used to create 2D wireframe entities by unwrapping cylindrical geometry. It can accommodate various part orientations – when the rotational center of the part is aligned directly on the X-, Y-, or Z-Axis, set the Unwrap Rotation Center Axis to the appropriate axis.

You can also draw a line through the rotational center of the cylinder to manually select as the Unwrap Rotation Center Axis. You select the line after selecting the unwrap geometry.

Another way to deal with custom part orientations is to use the User Defined option. When selected, the Origin and Direction groups become available. In the Origin group, type X-, Y-, and Z-values to define a point along the Unwrap Rotation Center Axis. In the Direction group, type the X-, Y-, and Z-values to define the direction from the Origin.

Using Advance Rough with our V25 Mill Pro software you have the option to perform rest roughing. This option allows you to define the previous tool information, allowing you to target left over material that needs to be cleaned up. You can tell when there is material left over by using the analysis tool in our simulation to perform a color scale deviation report.

The deviation is a material offset compared to the target geometry. The color of the material changes the more or less material exists on top of the target geometry. With this feature, the user can identify the amount of the material left on the target geometry; identify the gouges, when too much material was removed and the target geometry is being damaged; and identify the area where a rest machining is necessary.

In this picture you can see, in blue and light blue, that there is material left over that needs to be cleaned up.

Using the rest rough option you can target just this material, eliminating wasted tool motion and decreasing your run times.

So it’s Wednesday morning and you have a job ready to go on the CNC machine and a design modification comes in that grinds the whole project to a stand-still. Now what? It’s a simple change to the design that requires a new toolpath strategy and NC program for your $100,000 CNC machine tool. Work holding…no problem! Tooling…no problem! Material…no problem! Let’s fix the part file and roll out some new cutter path and simulate it! But wait…you pull up the part file and have NO idea how to update the roughing and finishing paths and generate a new toolpath. The client is on the way over and your programmer is not there. And even if he is, what is your turn around time on this type of process modification? Whether it’s a simple one or a complex one, you know one thing and that is you have a CAD/CAM software product that you were told would “do it” no problem. You, and thousands of other programmers or shop owners, go through this regularly. Most of us would like to think or be in a situation where we could just “lean over the partition” and ask our neighboring colleague for some help, a quick tip, or that golden nugget of non-formal data that brings it all together.
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For growing shops that need 4 axis indexing, wrapping, and rotary capabilities, BobCAD-CAM’s powerful 4th axis standard add-on is available at an affordable and accessible cost.

The new 4 Axis Standard uses an index system that allows you to index a part using your 4th axis. Once the part is indexed to a defined value, you’ll have the option for 2D or 3D tool paths. For example: if you wanted to engrave 4 sides of a box, you would be able to create an index system for each face with the option to engrave on them.
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