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lisa · 12th July 2007, 04:15 PM

Neat!

Modeling a face from a photo is certainly doable, but I don't think that's the hard part.

As for sending it to your cnc machine, it depends on what kind of equipment you have. My brother does work on race cars, and a good friend of his owns a machine shop where they build custom turbos. I know the cnc machines in the shop will take a DXF file for input, which is a format that AC3D supports. I know many machines use DXF, but I assume not all will, so you will need to find out what kind of files your equipment will use. The DXF format will allow you to embed curves and other shapes as well as polygon data, so find out as well what "flavor" of DXF it needs to be sure you make a compliant file. (DXF is plain text, so it's easy to look inside and see what's in there.)

You'll also want to check with your equipment manufacturer to find out what kind of limitations you might have to be careful of in your geometry. For example, I know the 5-axis machines can do all kinds of weird shapes, but some of the 3-axis and other machines have limitations on concave shapes or other kinds of cuts. Things like nostrils can get you into trouble on some machines. I assume that cutting into wood instead of metal only makes this more complicated. Depending on how large you are making your model and the capacity of your machine, you may also need to plan your seams. Many machines can't work on a large, solid block. A head is fairly uniform and convex, so I wouldn't think it would be too bad, but it is something to be aware of. I make latex masks and puppets as a hobby, and subtle changes in the design of an arm or a leg can make the molds 10x as complicated; it's my understanding that cnc is a lot the same. Again, your equipment manufacturer or an expert in cnc equipment can help you here.

12th July 2007, 04:15 PM	#2
lisa Senior Member Professional user Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Phoenix, AZ Posts: 917	Re: A face from a photo Neat! Modeling a face from a photo is certainly doable, but I don't think that's the hard part. As for sending it to your cnc machine, it depends on what kind of equipment you have. My brother does work on race cars, and a good friend of his owns a machine shop where they build custom turbos. I know the cnc machines in the shop will take a DXF file for input, which is a format that AC3D supports. I know many machines use DXF, but I assume not all will, so you will need to find out what kind of files your equipment will use. The DXF format will allow you to embed curves and other shapes as well as polygon data, so find out as well what "flavor" of DXF it needs to be sure you make a compliant file. (DXF is plain text, so it's easy to look inside and see what's in there.) You'll also want to check with your equipment manufacturer to find out what kind of limitations you might have to be careful of in your geometry. For example, I know the 5-axis machines can do all kinds of weird shapes, but some of the 3-axis and other machines have limitations on concave shapes or other kinds of cuts. Things like nostrils can get you into trouble on some machines. I assume that cutting into wood instead of metal only makes this more complicated. Depending on how large you are making your model and the capacity of your machine, you may also need to plan your seams. Many machines can't work on a large, solid block. A head is fairly uniform and convex, so I wouldn't think it would be too bad, but it is something to be aware of. I make latex masks and puppets as a hobby, and subtle changes in the design of an arm or a leg can make the molds 10x as complicated; it's my understanding that cnc is a lot the same. Again, your equipment manufacturer or an expert in cnc equipment can help you here.