DELTACAD LAYER HOW TO
DELTACAD LAYER SOFTWARE

It is what I had in arms reach, and in 20 min, I had a fiberglass mold. Sometimes my process can be decidedly “redneck,” like hot gluing up a bunch of layers of acoustic ceiling tiles, and grinding away the shape. Possibly sculpting the relief in clay and scanning it, so that I could add and take away until it felt right.

DELTACAD LAYER HOW TO

If asked to do the same kind of project with elephants, I might choose a different way, since I would have to study the shapes more, and figure out how to compress the relief for their shape. In my case, I grew up around horses and have owned many. That method can only work if you understand the shape. (Another carver had dropped the ball, and they came to me last minute). I did that project in record time, under a super tight 1 week deadline. The result gave me a quick way to hog out most of the material from the doors so that I could go in and hand carve the final shape and details. I used hand sketched topography, scanned into Photoshop to create a level map of about 12 depth layers. The carved rearing horse doors are an example of this. So I have used Photoshop to create a shaded image then used ArtCAM to model a relief panel. ArtCAM has the ability to create a surface from a grey scale raster image.

The system was crude, but it allowed me to create the shape I wanted.

DELTACAD LAYER SOFTWARE

I could not get the software choices I had at the time to make the shape I wanted, so I designed and built a laser line scanning system to scan a hand sculpted 1/8th scale model. The ship bed was a challenge to program the base shape. Many times I don’t have an known path, and I have to figure out how to get to the end result with what I have, or what I can create as a tool.

I don’t use the software to see what something is going to look like: I try to get the software to shape what I already see.Īs far as CAD/CAM, I go through my bag of tricks and choose the one that works best to work out the shape. Once I have a design concept in my mind, I begin to flush it out with hand sketching, hand sculpting, and 2D or 3D software. This spacial awareness is mostly innate for me, but obviously honed with practice. I have a sign up in my shop, “Perfect is close enough.”Īs and artist and designer, my primary skill is vision, and as far back as I can recall I could see an object in 3D, and rotate it in my head. It is not uncommon for me to spend a week to 10 days just on the fit in the design phase on a complex piece. The payoff is my fit is exceptional, often not perceptible, even with close scrutiny. This takes a lot of time, test cuts, and fiddling with offsets in part mating. To avoid re-cutting parts, I do this kerf compensation in the design phase, and check for it in the 3D model at all the joints. You have to design out this spring back, and simply changing your offset in your tool path program is not sufficient for most of my applications. That spring-back amount varies by feed rate, spindle speed, grain direction, and type of wood or panel that you are cutting. Wood compresses and springs back when cut. If I am doing a lot of interlocking joints such as boxed corners, mortise and tenon, or shaped joints, then I will build it in 3D to insure fit before cutting. One of the issues is that a CNC router cut panel leaves material in the kerf. Time tested projected drawing techniques, used back in the days of the drafting table and T-square, are still faster for me. I have tried many times to bend the time curve with 3D tools, but I still end up going back to my simple little $40 DeltaCAD program to draw it up. To be honest, while 3D CAD is powerful, I can draw and project it out in my head for all the sides, faster than I can fiddle out the panel details in a 3D platform. Most of the furniture I built using 2D CAD. Here, he talks about his process, and how he uses tools. He doesn’t believe in following the rules, or using his software tools in the way that their creators envisioned. People who see computer programs as raw material, to be used and abused in whatever ways are necessary to achieve their creative vision. Others become power users, investing themselves in becoming experts at using one or more of the mainstream or high-end CAD systems. Then, there are the CAD hackers. In the CAD world, there are all kinds. Some people just use CAD as part of their job-in the same way as they use Word, Excel, or Outlook.

Deltacad layer