Introduction: How to Make a Woodcut From... a Photo of a Woodcut Using Your CNC Mill
My dad was just visiting, and he asked me if I could use my new CNC router to make a woodcut. That got me to thinking... sure, why not?
He sent me a photo of a woodcut hanging in my sister's house, and in a few hours I was able to make this woodcut! Very neat.
Unfortunately, this instructable uses the incredibly awesome, and extremely non-free Vectric Aspire software.
Stuff you'll need:
- a CNC mill/router
- a 90 degree V router bit
- a photo
- a hunk of MDF or other flat wood
- a buddy with Vectric Aspire or something similar. Somebody let me know if there is some free software that will do this!
Step 1: Crop Your Photo and Invert
Open your original photo, crop it, and reverse black & white. I re sized it to 500 pixels wide. This helps reduce the size of the traced image.
Step 2: Import Into Aspire
Open a new document in Aspire, set the document size to the size you like.
Then, import the photo.
Then, import the photo.
Step 3: Fit Vectors to Bitmap
This is pretty simple -- just click the Fit vectors to bitmap button. Choose 'Black and White', and slide the slider around until it looks good. When happy, click 'Fit Vectors'.
I like to delete the original bitmap so I can see the vectors more clearly.
I like to delete the original bitmap so I can see the vectors more clearly.
Step 4: Create Your Toolpath
Choose Toolpaths->Create V-Carve/Engraving toolpath.
Select a V shaped bit, select all your vectors, and 'calculate'.
Then you can do a 3-D preview.
That's pretty much it! Export your g-code and carve.
Like I said, Vectric is pretty awesome.
Select a V shaped bit, select all your vectors, and 'calculate'.
Then you can do a 3-D preview.
That's pretty much it! Export your g-code and carve.
Like I said, Vectric is pretty awesome.
Step 5: Make the Print
So, I sent this to my dad, who actually made some prints. Here are the results!
Looks like it worked quite nicely :-)
Looks like it worked quite nicely :-)