Wood Grain dxf?

[twiles]

This is probably an odd request, but does anyone have a dxf file that would simulate a wood grain pattern, or a hand carved pattern? I would like to cut this pattern into a piece of particle board or melamine. This pattern will be surrounding some text, I just want to add some texture around the text.

Thanks,

Terry

PS - I have not gotten my shopbot yet. I will be cutting this on another type of machine and will need to start out with a .dxf or an autocad file.

[birdsofplay]

You might try creating some randomly placed arcs and linestrings to simulate the grain

[billp]

Terry, I figured out a way..I took a mahogany 'texture fill' from Corel Draw and exported it as both a .dxf, and a.wmf file. I then tried to open them both in Turbocad, nothing showed up on the .dxf, but the .wmf was there in all it's beautiful color.....You could 'trace'which ever wood grain you wanted ( in a different color) leave out the rest, save it as a .dxf file, and cut it..If you don't have Corel, let me know I've got the file saved here as a .wmf..I think all Cad programs will open .wmfs...Bill P.

[birdsofplay]

That'll surly work Bill.

My CAD wont read wmf's but bmp, tif, jpg, pcx et al are OK .

This is the general technique for creating an engraving. Use a picture of your choosing and get it into whatever format your CAD will read with whatever your favorite Paint Prush programs is.
I use Paint Shop Pro 6.0 ( yep 7.0 is out )

Then import/place/insert/whatever the pic into your CAD background and then trace over and "Interpret" the pic with CAD lines, arcs, poly lines b-splines whatever.

It aint easy but Easy dosnt earn the Big bucks either.

[twiles]

Thanks, I'll play with it some more and see what I can come up with. I had started in this very direction, and thought I may as well ask the experts in case there were an easier way.
Just a little tid-bit that I have found in my trying to justify the purchase of a shopbot for home use.... I have noticed a few places on the net that say that the shopbot does not have ample cutting speed. I thought that I would share that I have been cutting some sample signs and logos (to show potential customers) using a Biesse Rover-30. We normally cut production parts at 1000 inches per minute without flaw, but the fastest that I can cut letters and complex designs is about 25-30IPM before the machine errors out. I just thought it was interesting that a machine that costs $200K can only cut very fine and complex features at the same speed as a $4K machine that I can have at home!

TW

[twiles]

I just wanted to say thanks to the guy that sent the 3-D .dxf file to me. I got the file, but then after leaving the computer for a bit I returned to find that my wife had cleaned out some E-mails with attachments, so I don't have that persons E-mail address!! Thanks though.
Now my curiosity is getting the best of me. With a shopbot, what type of tooling works best for cutting a full 3-D dxf file, and how long does it take to carve something like that out?? I have downloaded the demo of VectorCAM, but have not tried to run anything 3-D through it yet....will vector program these complex surfaces??
The software that I have at work cost more than 5 times what a shopbot does and it would not assign any tool path to those surfaces.

TW

[alton]

Hello Terry,

It was I, Alton. I'll send the file again.
The file is quite large. I think 2.4 meg.
Give it some time.

Alton
alton@shreve.net (mailto:alton@shreve.net)