Seashell

Scenario
Using a scanned photograph of a Seashell we will look at the process of using ArtCAM
to build the image into a 3D relief.

These instructions will outline how to use various techniques in ArtCAM to:
Construct the design vectors for the Seashell.
Build the Seashell into a relief.
Efficiently machine the part.

Loading Photographs into ArtCAM:

1. By default ArtCAM is always going to want to open an .art file.

2. In order to get ArtCAM to recognize and display raster images as an option in the
selection list, you will need to change the File of type option to point towards a
specific format of raster image or to All files.

3. Once you change the File of type option, then the raster images will appear in the
list of files to be opened.

4. Select the raster file that you wish to use and click Open.
Setting up a Model Size when using Scanned Images:
1. Setting-up the model size.

ArtCAM is always going to automatically fill in your height and width

option fields with the original resolution of your photo.
These automatic values typically are not what sizes you want to work
with. In order to correct these values and adjust them to the original size of
the scan, you are going to need to tell ArtCAM that the file you are
loading is a scanned raster image.

2. Activate the Scanned D.P.I. option under the Method section of the model size
page.

These options determine how to control the size of your model or file that
is being opened.
Once you change to the Scanned D.P.I. option, you will notice that
ArtCAM will alter the size of the model to reflect the physical size of the
image as it was scanned.

3. Switch the method option back to Image Size to regain full control over the size
of the model.

Be aware that because you are working with a scanned photograph that
you will be limited to controlling only one of the size dimensions. The
second dimension is scaled proportionally to the new value according to
the original scan size.

4. Select the appropriate units.

5. Select the OK button

Dealing with Resolution:

Resolution is a very important factor when working with photos, it is not possible
to change the resolution of a photo in ArtCAM, therefore the original resolution
of the scanned image is quite important.

Sometimes your data will come from the customer and it may not contain enough
resolution. If this is the case, then it can prove to be very difficult to work with the
data from the customer.

Whenever possible, if you are able to instruct the customer about how to scan the
image, you should try to provide guidelines for how the image should be scanned
and how much resolution it should contain.
 The answer to this resolution issue is not always going to be: use a high scan
resolution.

It is possible to work with and get satisfactory results from lower resolution scans.

It will all come down to what image is being used and what you are hoping to
achieve by using the image.

It’s very hard to predict what you will be able to accomplish from a scanned
photo until you actually load it in and see what you have to work with.

Evaluation of the Scanned Seashell Resolution:

The resolution of this image is 778 X 698 pixels.

The current resolution of this image is good enough and contains enough detail to
allow us to fit the design vectors that we need.

This resolution is a bit low for modelling and machining a real world job, so in
our case we will only use this image to manually fit the vectors.

After we have the vectors we will export them and then re-import them into a
higher resolution model before we actually build the relief.

Creating the Design Vectors for the Seashell:

1. Open ArtCAM Pro.

2. Go to Open Existing Model.

3. Change the File of type option in the Open dialog box to .jpg or to All files.

4. Select Shell.jpg and click Open.

5. When the Set Model Size dialog box opens, change the Method option to Scanned
D.P.I. and then back to Image Size.

6. The original size for the Shell should be Height: 2.3267” Width: 2.5933”

7. Change the Height value to 7.0”; the Width value will be automatically scaled to
7.8023”. Make sure your units are set to inches, and the origin can remain in the
bottom left corner.
 8. Click the OK button.

The photo is now loaded into ArtCAM.

If you extend your colour palette almost all the way to the top of your work
area, you will notice that it is full of colours; there are 253 in this palette.

Since this image contains so many levels of colour it’s not going to be very
easy to use colour modelling directly from the scanned image.

ArtCAM’s Bitmap to Vector Function:

We will want to see how well we can get ArtCAM to fit vectors to this image.

Due to the high number of colours in this image, it will more then likely only be
possible to fit a vector around the outside boundary of the shell. This may not
work for all photos; it will all depend on the complexity of the image.

We must reduce the number of colours in this image to see if can fit a vector
around any one solid colour.

Use the Reduce Colours icon from the Model Toolbar to begin removing colours.

The Reduce Colours function will help to get the image down to a manageable
number of colours that we could possibly use to fit vectors around.

To do this, try halving (repeatedly) the current number of colours in the image
until the photo is down to a reasonably low number of colours.

There is no guarantee that this process will work for every scanned photo and it’s
really just trial and error to see if this technique will work.

To demonstrate what I am talking about:

1. Take the image of the shell and use the Reduce Colours function to bring the
number of colours down to about 7.

Do not skip immediately to 7 colours use the halving rule and half the total
number of colours each time until you are down to 7 colours.

Each time you reduce the colours, you need to evaluate the image to see if
any one solid colour covers an area that you wish to have a vector around.

In this example you will notice that the Reduce Colour method does not
isolate any one colour enough to automatically have ArtCAM fit vectors.
 2. In this case, we are going to need to manually fit most of our vectors.

Creating the Design Vectors Manually:

Since it was not possible to reduce the colours in this image to produce the boundary
around the outside of the shell, the next best method will be to create our own colour
boundary.

1. Re-load the image Shell.jpg

2. Add in a few basic colours (Yellow and Red) from the Colour Palette on the
Bitmap Toolbar.

You will only be able to add in two colours since ArtCAM’s colour palette
has a maximum of 255 colours allowed. These new colours will be placed at
the bottom of your colour palette so you will need to scroll down in order to
select and use these colours when needed.

3. Select the Paintbrush Tool from the Bitmap Toolbar, paint with the colour Red by
selecting it as your primary colour from the colour palette.

4. Selecting a brush size (35) that fits into the curvature (indents) of the front left
hand side of the shell.
 Use the diameter of the paintbrush to fill in the indents of the curvature first
and then paint between the circles that have just painted. The quality and
accuracy of the vector boundary will depend on how much attention and detail
you put into painting this outline. Zooming in and out on the image will aid in
this process.

5. Paint around the outside of the shell leaving the inside detail (gold colour)
unpainted.

6. Leave and paint around the areas that resemble a fin on the right hand side of your
shell. See diagram at end of this section for more details.

7. Change the brush size to 75.

8. Paint the undesired background away.

When you are finished you should be left with a gold coloured shell on a red
background.

DO NOT paint over the inside detail (gold colour) of the shell.

9. Use the Bitmap to Vector icon from the Vector Toolbar and fit a vector around
the shell. Use 100 as the value for the keep lines longer then option.

Two vectors will be created.

Be aware that red surrounds the entire outside of the rectangular model
because we painted the background. In addition to the shell outline vector,
there has also been a vector fit around the outside of the square model.

Take and delete this unneeded rectangular vector; this will help to avoid any
problems or confusion later in the project.

10. Export the shell outline vector as an eps file and call it Outline.eps
 This is necessary since the vector merging tool that we are going to use will
end up deleting the outline vector that we are going to need for the second
merging operation. We will also require this geometry vector at a later stage in
the project, so it is always a good idea to have a safe copy saved especially
when merging vectors together.

What’s Next?
There are a couple of different routes that we can take for the next step of this example, it
will depend on the situation and what the requirements are for the job.

We can take the outside vector of the shell and export it as an eps file. After that it
could be reloaded into the original and adjusted to fit more accurately to the
original image.

We can leave the vector as is and continue working to define the inside detail of
the shell.

Building more Design Vectors:

We are going to leave the vector as is and continue working to define the inside detail of
the shell.

Before we can really move and continue building design vectors, we need to think about
what relief building technique is going to be used to get the ridged detail for the top of the
shell.

For starters let’s begin by isolating and creating separate vectors for the fin areas by the
hub of the shell.

To do this it will probably be easiest to use one of the generic vector shapes in ArtCAM
and then take advantage of the vector merging functions in the software.

11. Create an elliptical vector that matches up to the curvature of the side of the shell
in the area of the fins.
 12. Rotate this vector shape around in order to get it in alignment with the curvature.

With the ellipse vector in the approximate position for vector merging, drag
the end nodes around in order to better fit the vector to the required curvature.

After this has been done the vectors can now be merged together.

Merging the Vectors:

13. Select the outside profile of the shell and then multi select (using shift) the ellipse
that you aligned along the first fin. From the Vector Merging Toolbar use the
Intersect Vector function.

This will merge the first set of vectors to give you the outline for fin1.

This is going to delete your outside shell boundary but we have a safe copy
saved.

14. Export this vector as an eps file and call it fin1.eps

15. Import the outside profile vector of the shell- Outline.eps

16. Repeat the above steps in order to get the second fin.

TIP: An imported vector will come in as a grouped entity. Certain Vector

Merging icons will not be available until you ungroup the vectors that you are
trying to merge. Make sure that you ungroup the imported vector before you
try to use the merging functions. All merging functions will be available if
both vectors are ungrouped.
Fitting Vectors for the Top Ridge Details:
To get the ridge like detail that you see on top of the shell, we will use the Two Rail
Sweep function and a cross section profile that we will design later.

Now we are going to fit vector detail to use for our two rail sweeps of the ridges.

17. Use the polyline tool to create the vectors to be used as rails.

Start out by drawing straight lines.

Begin at the bottom of the shell and define one rail per ridge going all the way
to the near horizontal ridge in the middle of the shell.

We will define the bottom half of the ridges and then mirror a copy of these to
get the top half.

You will also require a rail on the very outside edge of the bottom ridge.

When setting these rails up you will want to make sure that they extend past
the outside vector of the shell.

The rails are being extended past the shell so that the ridges can be built
bigger then necessary.

The excess detail that is built will be chopped away.

Once you have drawn your straight lines in the approximate position of the
ridges, you will need to do some vector editing in order to better fit these
vectors to the curvature of the ridged detail.

18. Change the vector lines into bezier curves.

19. Adjust the nodes on the control handlebars so the vectors fit more accurately to
the ridges.
 Look to see how the vectors for these ridges meet up at the hub (right side) of
the shell.

20. Zoom in and see and verify that none vectors in the hub area overlap.

If any of the vectors do, adjust the spacing so that you do not have any
overlaps.

Be care when moving any of these nodes, if you remain zoomed into the hub
area while making adjustments, the curvature of the entire vector will be
affected. If necessary the control handlebars for these vectors can be adjusted
after the end nodes have been positioned.

Remember to only define half of these vectors, since we are planning to copy
and mirror these vectors for the top portion.

The details inside the shell are not necessarily symmetrical, but by doing it
this way we will get approximate vectors that we can edit.

21. Group the all ridge vectors together except for the one that is almost horizontal.

22. Select the near horizontal vector and activate the Mirror Vectors function from the
Vector Editing Toolbar.

23. On the mirroring option page, do a multi-select to pick the group of vectors that
you are planning to mirror.

24. Check the Copy Original Vectors option box and use the About Line mirroring
option.

25. Copy and mirror these ridge vectors to the top portion of the design.

26. Ungroup both sets of vectors after they are mirrored.

 27. Begin adjusting the top ridge vectors.

Start by moving the end points that are on the open face (left) of the shell so
that they fall approximately in the centre of the indents.

Make sure that these end points extend past the outside profile of the shell,
once you have positioned these points; you can adjust the control handlebars
so that the vectors fit the curvature of the top ridges.

28. Export these ridge vectors as eps and call them Ridges.eps

Drawing the Cross Section for the Ridges:

At this stage we are going to draw the cross section for our ridges.

29. Drawing a rectangle anywhere on the model that has a size of 0.25” for Height
and 1.5” for Width.

TIP: To make editing this vector easier, position this rectangular shape in very
bottom left corner of the model. The bottom left node of the rectangle needs to
be positioned at X0 Y0. Doing this makes it easier to edit the design because
all of the numbers are referenced from X0, Y0.

30. Use the Transform Vector-Position page to reposition your rectangle in the
bottom corner.

31. Remove the bottom span of the rectangle to leave you with a three-sided vector.

R on the keyboard while hovering overtop of the span (span cursor) will allow
you to remove the span.
32. Insert a point into the top span.

I on the keyboard while hovering overtop the position (span cursor) will add a
point to the span.

33. Use the node properties to position this node.

After the point is added into the span, get a node cursor (black arrow) and then
access the properties of that node by using the right mouse menu.

34. Change the position of that node to be at X0.75”, Y remains unchanged.

35. Delete the two corner nodes on the top span.

D on the keyboard with a node cursor (black arrow) while hovering overtop
the appropriate node will delete the points.

You should be left with a triangle shape.

36. Smooth the centre node on the top span.

S on the keyboard with a node cursor (black arrow) will smooth the node.

You will notice the two linear lines on each side of that node are transformed into
bezier curves.

Do not adjust the handlebars for the top node (blue) these nodes should remain
horizontally inline with the top of the dotted selection rectangle.

37. Make the adjustment nodes for the bottom two points of the vector shape
perfectly horizontal with the bottom of the selection rectangle.

To do this you can use the node properties technique that we used earlier. No
need to adjust the X value, but change the Y value to Y0.

By making the handlebar control points vertically inline with the nodes of the
vector, it ensures that the shape flows tangent through the bottom two nodes.

When we use this cross section-profile for the two rail sweeps, the shapes will
flow and blend nicely together.

38. Place this profile anywhere in the model area or off to the side in the grey scratch
area.
Drawing the Cross Section for the Seashell:
The final piece of geometry that we are going to create is going to be the cross section-
profile for the underlying shape of the shell. It has been decided that to build the
underlying shape of the shell we are going to use the Spin Relief function.

39. Create a rectangle that is 5.5” in Width and 0.85” in Height.

40. Position this vector in the bottom left corner of the model for easier design editing
purposes.

41. Remove the bottom span.

42. Going from right to left, insert a node between the ½ way and ¾ mark on the top
span.

43. Delete the two corner nodes; you should just be left with the centre node that you
added in on the top span.

44. Smooth the top node.

Do not change the handlebar control points for the top node at this time.

45. Take the two adjustment nodes for the left and right side points and position them
so that they are almost vertical.

The handle bar on the left hand side needs to be shortened so that it rises up
about 25% of the entire height of the bounding box.

On the right side the handle bar should be extended upwards so that it is
higher then the bounding box and almost perfectly vertical.

46. Adjust the remaining nodes and get a cross section-profile for the shell.

47. Make the totally height of this vector 0.85”.

If necessary you could always scale this vector un-proportionally after you
have finished the adjustments.

To do this, you would use the Size section in the Transform Vector page.
All of the design vectors to build the relief are now complete.

Take all these cross section-profile vectors and export them as an eps file called
Profiles.eps

Building the Top Relief Details (Ridges):

We are now ready to turn this shell into a 3D shape.

1. Open a New job that is 7” square and contains 1300 points per side.

2. Import the design vectors that you created.

3. Ungroup the vectors.

The ridges will be built first.

4. Open the Two Rail Sweep wizard from the Relief Toolbar.

5. Select the first two ridge vectors beginning at the bottom and then select the
smaller profile that we have built for the ridge details.

Use the status section on the Two Rail Sweep wizard to make sure that the
vectors you are using are valid for the two rail sweep.

6. Sweep the shape

7. Repeat this, but this time select the 2nd and 3rd ridge vectors.

The edge of this 2nd ridge shape will run along the edge of the first.

8. Merge highest with the two rail sweep.

9. Continue all the way a round the shell until you have a fan of ridges modeled.

TIP: You can continuously use the model-grayscale function to update the 2D
view with what has been created in the 3D view. This will help to track the
progress of building these ridges.

10. Save the 3D model as a relief and call it Shell-ridges.rlf.

The Save Relief function is on the Relief Toolbar.

Building the Underlying Seashell Shape:
11. Next Reset the relief.

12. Position the large cross section for the underlying shape of the shell.

In order to successfully use the next relief building function for the underlying
shape, you will need to make sure that the cross section is positioned
correctly.

The green start node of the cross section vector needs to be setup as the point
of rotation for the Spin command.

When a cross section is used for spinning the vector gets rotated according to
the start point and is spun about in the Z-axis.

This positioning is very important or the spin will not build the relief in the
correct location.

13. Position the large cross section so that the lowest two nodes (bottom side of
vector) are approximately running through the center of the shell in the Y-axis.
(Y3.5”)

The green start point for this cross section should be on the right hand side of
this vector.

You could draw a guideline on the model and position it at exactly Y3.5”, you
can then line your cross section up by eye.

Use the F9 key to center the vector and then adjust the positioning from there.
14. Use the Spin command from the Relief Toolbar.

Pick the large cross section.

Hit Select.
Check the Invert curve in Z option so this is spun as a convex shape.
Hit Next.
Hit Next again as we do not want to change cross sections for the end profile.
Uncheck “Sweep Through 360 degrees”.
Use 180 for Start Angle.
Use 0 for Finish Angle.
Leave Clockwise selected.
Next
Check the box Use a Z modulation curve.
Pick the small vector profile that you used for the ridges.
Click Next.
Make sure Add is selected and Click the Spin button.

15. You should see a shape that graduates up to a point at the hub (right side) of the
shell.

16. Load and Add the relief Shell-ridges.rlf onto the underlying shape of the shell.

With both reliefs combined you are now going to need to chop away the areas
that have been built in excess.
 17. Use the outside vector of the Shell and flood fill the area that you wish to keep
(Inside of shell). Any colour will suffice.

18. Pick the colour that you flood filled the shell as your primary color, use the Zero
Relief Not Under Colour function to chop the unwanted relief away.

19. Pick the fin areas of the shell and raise them (use the vector modelling shape
editor) with a flat shape to a height of 0.2”
.
Merge High with the rest of the model to be sure everything blends together.

20. Prior to machining this relief you may want to smooth the relief 5 – 10 times.

Machining Boundaries:
1. Do a grayscale image so we have a 2D representation of the 3D relief.

2. Delete all the vectors from the model area.

3. Use the colour boundaries in the image to fit a new outline vector around the shell
using the Bitmap to Vector function.
For the keep lines longer then option in the Bitmap to Vector function use
a value of 100 for the keeps lines longer then option.
 Remember that if you use yellow to the fit vectors then you will have an
extra vector around the outside of the square model that should be deleted
before proceeding.

Machining Strategy:
Since we are going to machine this out of foam or a soft material a roughing pass
is not going to be necessary so we are just going to jump right to the finishing
strategy.

In the 3D view, notice that the outside edge of our part is almost vertical.

For a part that contains vertical walls around the outside, a good strategy to use in
order to machine the part efficiently and quickly, is a machine selected vector
toolpath.

The boundary for the toolpath should limit the tool to only cut the top of the part
and to not fall of the top and machine any of the vertical walls.

By confining the toolpath to only the cut the top of the part the user is ensuring
that the machine does not have to continuously speed up and slow down to climb
up and down the vertical walls of the relief.

It’s these extreme changes in geometry (vertical walls) that cause irregular feed
rates in the toolpath and therefore lengthen the amount of time that it takes to cut
the part.

The vertical walls of this relief can be machined by doing a simple cutout pass
around the outside of the part using a Flat Endmill.

By using a cutout pass to cut the vertical walls, the user is applying more intuitive
and time efficient ways to toolpath this type of part.
 This type of strategy will run faster then a traditional raster toolpath over the
entire part and will save time.

Machining within a Vector boundary; The sewing machine

effect:

With the vector fitted around the outside of the Shell, you will now need to offset
it to account for the diameter of the tool.

When the Machine Selected Vector strategy is used, it is necessary to account for
the tool diameter.

The way that Machine Selected Vector works in ArtCAM is that the center of the
tool stops at the vector used for the boundary. If we did not offset the vector, then
half of the cutter would still remain on the relief.

The rule of thumb is, when machining within a selected vector, the vector needs
to be offset by a minimum of the radius of the cutter.

By giving the vector boundary this offset you are ensuring that the backside of the
cutter travels to the extremities of the relief and that the complete relief is
machined.

In our case since we are planning to use a cutout pass to cut the vertical walls,
simply offset the vector boundary by approximately 0.02” and not half the
diameter. This value is unique to this job and the tool (1/8th Ball Nose) that we
will be using for the finish machining. The suggested 0.02” offset will not apply
to all reliefs and is something that needs to be adjusted for each individual project
when using this technique.

The offset value will vary depending on the size of tooling that is used.

The main things to note and to watch for is that when your toolpath is generated
that the toolpath remains on top of the relief and that it doesn’t fall off and cut
sides.
 When the toolpath cuts the sides and appears to travel up and down as it moves
along the wall, this is referred to as the sewing machine effect.

Always try to avoid creating toolpaths that contain sewing machining machine
effect.

If a toolpath is run that contains the sewing machine effect there is a good chance
that vertical walls of the part will not have a smooth finish.

By only offsetting our vector outwards by 0.02”, we are forcing the tangent point
of the cutter past the boundary of the top edge, but not allowing the cutter to fall
down the vertical walls.

Machining the Shell; Machine Selected Vector:

1. Select the outline vector of the Shell.

2. Use the Offset Vector function from the Vector Toolbar.

3. Offset this vector Outwards by a distance of 0.02”.

4. By default this newly offset vector should be selected. If not, then select it.

5. Toggle to your Toolpaths Tab.

6. Define your material; use the Material Setup icon from the Toolpath Operations
section.

INFO: In the latest release you can toggle on or off the icon description
text for the toolpath icons. Use the arrows in various sections title bars to
do this.

7. Use 1” material, set the bottom offset to be zero and the initialization point for the
tool to be the top of the material. Click OK

8. Next activate the Machine Relief page from the 3D Toolpath Section. Make sure
the offset vector is selected in the 2D view.

9. Fill in the Machine Relief page as follows:

Area to machine-Selected Vector.

Strategy-Offset
Cut Direction-Climb Mill.
Start Point-Inside.
Allowance:0.
 Tolerance:0.001.
Machine Safe Z:0.25”, Home Position: X0Y0Z0.25.
Tool: 1/8” Ball Nose from the HDU section in the database
No multiple passes.
No Ramping.
Name and calculate the toolpath.

After the toolpath has calculated spent some time in the 3D view rotating the view
around.

Pay special attention to the top edge of the relief close to the vertical wall.

You want to make sure that the toolpath doesn’t fall down and cut the vertical wall.
If by chance your toolpath does fall off the top of the part, then you need to change the
offset value to something smaller and redo the vector for your machining boundary.

10. After evaluating this toolpath you can then simulate it to see how the part will
look after this toolpath is run.

Machining the Vertical Wall of the Shell; Cutout pass:

Now that the top portion of our relief is machined, we are now ready to set up the cutout
pass to cut the vertical walls. If the Shell is being cut right out of the material, this can
also be accomplished in this step.

1. Open the 2D profiling page by clicking the icon in the 2D toolpaths section.

ArtCAM will automatically fill in the finish depth on this page according to
the material thickness that has been defined. If you do not wish to cut all the
way through the material then you will need to change this value.

2. Enter the values for this toolpath as follows:

Profile Side-Outside.
Start depth:0.6”.
Finish Depth:1”.
Allowance:0.
Tolerance:0.001”.
Machine Safe Z:0.25”, Home Position: X0Y0Z0.25.
Profiling Tool: ¼ End Mill from the HDU section in the database.
Cut Direction: Climb Mill.
Check the Add Lead In/Out moves: (D)=.5,(O)=.4, Linear with automatic
positioning. NO ramping moves.
Name the toolpath and calculate it.
 Notice the new option for Overcut distance in the Lead In/Out section. This allows us
to cut past the point of entry in an effort to eliminate any possible dwell or deflections
marks on the side of the part.

3. Now simulate this toolpath and view the end results in the simulation mode.

This Seashell training file is now complete and hopefully you have learned some new
more efficient ways to machine a 3D relief in ArtCAM.