Engrave an image? Flat surface, Textured, not vector!

[DorjeTM]

Hello everyone. I'm working on a new product line, and it requires an engraving. By engraving, I mean a textured, curvy surface. I've only attempted this with the Carvewright software for my hobby woodworking at home, but we loved the effect so much that we want it as part of real products. However, this has proven to be extremely frustrating with solidworks and/or Inventor.

I've attached an image as an example of an engraved part (the model texture is wood, but the machine cuts these in polycarbonate just fine). This takes less than a minute to make in that software once you have the image; it's a matter of click the import option and set the max depth (a simplified explanation as there are more advanced options, but you should get the idea). Imagine how long such a textured and curved shape would take to model without a feature like this.

So then comes the question: how do you do this in Solidworks? I know about the auto trace and sketch from image, but those don't give you the same result without hours of freeforming and surface modeling.


(If anyone is curious, the software I'm comparing does this function by brightness comparison. It turns the image to black and wide, then smooths the pixels, then cuts the depth for that picture based on brightness. With some photoshop/illustrator work, the results are very nice.)

 

[jassco]

Hi, DorjeTM:

I do not have an answer. But I do have a question for you. An image is 2D. How does Carvewright know depth of engraving from the set max depth? Mathematically, it is not possible, is it?

Best regards,

Alex

 

[JMirisola]

If I'm understanding your question, you don't want to do an engraving, you want to essentially carve a part that has some engraving in it. Unless your Carvewright software can export some sort of neutral file format (*.iges, *.x_t), I can't think of a quick and easy way to do what you want within SolidWorks.

Jeff Mirisola
My Blog

 

[DorjeTM]

jassco, it's actually quite possible, and widely done. For example, we have an ISRA Optical Inspector which uses a line scan camera to inspect transparent parts. It compiles the video feed and compares the brightness of each pixel to each other and evaluates the parts based on that. For example, dark spots larger than .003" in one direction indicates a defect. Similarly, the software compares the pixels to each other, and assigns the cut depth of that region by the range of brightnesses. See the wikipedia article on grayscale for more explanation on the mathematical equivalent. As I mentioned in the bottom of the first post, it does other functions to make it easier.

(Technically, the pixels aren't even analyzed. The binary representation of the pixels has all of the necessary information already; it's just easier to understand it this way.)

It would thoroughly surprise me if this function wasn't available at all in Solidworks/Inventor. Most logos (company, product line, certifications) are more than just vector art, and it would be a useful and simple feature to add (since it's so similar to Sketch from picture).

 

[EEnd]

I do not believe that there is anything built in to SolidWorks to accomplish what you want. However, I did a quick Google search on: Grayscale to stl converter. There appears to be a large number of utilities which will convert grayscale images into stl. You can then import the stl file into SolidWorks.

Eric

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

I don't know of any CAD system which has that functionality.
It could be very useful, albeit extremely resource consuming, to be able to create actual textures in 3D model parts ... especially for RP parts.

 

[jassco]

Hi,

If you can convert from Grayscale to stl, then it must be a toy. I do not think SW needs that. Grayscale is an image which is a reflection of light. Building a solid model based on reflection is not a solid approach fundamentally.

Best regards,

Alex

 

[ctopher]

Only some specialized software can do this, not CAD.
With experience and practice, you can model each piece, place onto the base part, then creat them in SW as an assy template or something similar.

Chris
SolidWorks 11
ctopher's home
SolidWorks Legion