Going The Other Way

[acb]

OK, I did a bozo no-no and overwrote a CRV file with another project. But I still have the SBPs (one pocketing, one v-carve).

So, what's the best way to reverse from cutting files into a design file?

(I suspect I'm missing something really obvious, but please, somebody, embarrass me!)

[dana_swift]

Art going from CRV to SBP is pretty much a one way deal. I can imagine a utility that takes a SBP file and generates a DXF from it, but I am not aware of any in existence already. Once that was done, you would still have to offset the lines in the DXF to adjust for bit sizes, etc.

Do you have a DXF the CRV file was made from?

That would be by far the easiest path-

D

[Gary Campbell]

Guys..
There is a converter from .SBP to DXF that I have heard about. Havnt used it, nor do I know where to find it, but its out there.
Gary

[myxpykalix]

its in the control software. Go to Files/Conversions or FC

[acb]

(Back off the road for a couple of days.)

The converter gets me the toolpath(s) as a dxf. I'm not seeing any way to read a toolpath back into PartWorks in order to preview it and/or combine with others... which might be a nice future feature. (Or maybe there's some other toolpath-preview tool out there.)

So now I'm torn between going back to the original bitmap and doing the whole trace-and-tweak again, or maybe taking my never-been-opened probe out for a spin on a prototype I located. The object is a 12" round seal v-carved .25 deep into .5 material.

Anyone tried probing something on that scale?

[srwtlc]

Art, You can open/import the .dxf that the converter made in PartsWorks. Although, if the file was originally a v-carving file, you probably won't be able to and with a v-carving file, it would be pretty tough to get the path offset right.

You could get a PartsWorks/VcarvePro type preview by using the new previewer in the beta version of SB3. You could see it, but that's about it. One thing that could be done to help you to retrace it though would be, once you have previewed it in SB3, set the fill color to black, the material to something light, set the preview quality to high, then save the shaded image as a jpg. You can then take that jpg into PartsWorks/VCP and run a trace on it. I would think that it would save some time by giving you a trace that is close to what you had before you lost your file.

[acb]

My earlier post apparently didn't.

Thanks, Scott... the beta was precisely what I needed!