Cutting contour cnc files

[Phoenix101]

Hi all,

I find myself in a rather frustrating situation.

I have access to a good cnc cutter, however it needs to have files that are Corel Draw (up to version 14) or in Illustrator (up to version CS5) and have a cutting contour.

I have searched allover, yet i found none.

Andy advice is welcome.

Kind regards,

Paul

 

[xeno]

isn't file type more important ?
and the cutting contour is just the tool offset ?

sometimes a cad program can do the same, but you will have to draw the tool offset yourself.

 

[Forge]

"Andy advice is welcome" - Hey Andy, get in here, someone's looking for you, sorry :facepalm

Can you confirm what type of CNC cutter you are using, are you just working on 2D shapes, or 2.5D, 3D.

Most CNC machines/software will allow you to import a DXF file, and most drawing packages will export/save a file in DXF format.

If this is possible, simply open the DXF file in the CNC software tool. The next step is highly dependent on the CNC software you are using but you should
at least see a setting for the operation type, profiling or pocketing etc, to indicate what side of the vector/drawing lines the tool will run. Then you would have the tool
size so that the software can offset accordingly.

In most cases use of a DXF file is better as it can help to avoid different software revisions, future version problems like you are having (up to version 14) etc.

 

[Phoenix101]

Sorry for the very general question, I'm into modelling, painting and airbrushing and not knowledgeable on 3d files.

 

[Phoenix101]

Found this after getting some more input

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/auto...our-of-image-use-as-cnc-cut-file/td-p/5588316

Will try and update

 

[Forge]

Looks good, nice find. I use a software package called V Carve which can import bitmap images and convert to a drawing file for cutting. I would recommend that you retrace the image, obviously depending on the size of the image, but from my own experience such types of software can't pick out say a circle accurately so it gives a bestimate and then when you cut out your part the edge will be jagged and you have more finishing to do, just to be aware, but I will definitely be checking this out, thanks and best of luck.