Carve Designs the Opposite Way
How to change the way your designs carve with offsets and correct vector selection. This lesson applies to Vectric VCarve, Aspire, and Cut2D.
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Video Transcript:
A common question I see a lot is how to carve your design in different ways. So in this lesson, I'm gonna show you how to take the same design and carve it multiple different ways using a few simple techniques. And before we get into that, let's first understand how this VCarve Toolpath works. So you could see the darker black areas is where it's being carved.
And a great way to visualize this is by creating the toolpaths and then turning them on by clicking the check box to make them active. And then in the 2D view, you will see the areas that are being carved. Now this will show up as a wire frame view representing the center line of the bit and the direction that it's going to cut.
But what's great is you can also turn this to a solid view. And that's gonna be at the very top of the top toolbar, and you'll see this button that says toggle toolpath 2D drawing style wire frame, or Solid. So if you click on that, you'll see it will turn to a purple solid color. And now this will show you the exact areas that are being carved.
And just by judging off this first one, you could see the vectors that were selected, were all of these vectors that we see in this design. So the way the carving works is outside of the outermost line is obviously not gonna be carved, and then inside of that line will be carved up until it reaches the next line, which in this case will be these letters and this inner circle, and then it's gonna skip the next part.
Which in this case, it'll skip the letters and it will skip this inner circle area, and then it'll carve the next shape inside of that shape. So in this case, it'll be this star. So basically what you're doing when you select multiple objects is you're gonna carve every other area of the design. So each time you have a closed vector inside of another closed vector, it'll be carved, then not carved, then carved, and then so on.
And I'm using the VCarve Toolpath for this because it will carve these nice, sharp corners where we have some finer detail. You can use the pocket toolpath and it's treated the exact same way, except you are not gonna be able to carve in those tighter areas like you can with a V bit. So that's the reason I am using that toolpath.
Okay, now that we understand that a little bit, let's remove our toolpaths and we'll start from scratch. Okay, here we are with the same design copied four times and we have no toolpaths. So what we're gonna do is create a toolpath for each one of these and see the differences between them all. And before I do that, I'm gonna create a simple profile toolpath, going all the way through the material on the outside of the outermost line.
And I'm just gonna select all four outer circles. And generally you want to do that last, but I'm gonna do this first just so we can see the differences as we go through these toolpaths. So I'm just gonna calculate that and we can preview that. And there's our four circles cut out. Now we're gonna carve our designs in each circle.
So for the very first one, we're gonna select all the vectors. So that's gonna be the outer circle and everything inside of it. And then we're gonna go to the VCarve toolpath. And like I said, depending on your design, you can also use the pocket toolpath for this. And since we have a large area to carve, I'm gonna do a flat depth of 0.08 inches.
I'll just use a 90 degree V-Bit for this, and a quarter inch Endmill to clear out the larger areas. Okay, so I'm just gonna click calculate on this and you'll see that will create our toolpath here. And now I will preview visible toolpaths. And you can see the design is gonna be no carve on the letters and no carve on that inside circle, and then carve on the opposite sides of those areas.
And that's because we selected all the vectors. So if you wanted to carve the opposite of this, what you would do is let's start a new VCarve toolpath. We would select all of our shapes again, except this time we can hold shift and deselect the outermost shape. Now that's gonna carve it exactly opposite of what we did in the last one.
So let's calculate that and you can see it looks different already. So let's click preview visible toolpaths. And there you go, you can see that's exactly opposite of the one on the left. And that's just because we deselected that outermost vector. So that's one way to do it. Another way you can do it is by adding another vector on the outside.
So I'll show you what that looks like. So I'm actually gonna reset the preview and go back to our 2D view and then take that outermost circle. And I'm gonna offset that using the offset tool. And I'm gonna go outwards, and let's just go a quarter inch and click offset. And then click close, and you'll see we have a new additional circle on the outside.
Now if we go back to that VCarve toolpath by double clicking on it to edit it. And now if we hold shift and select both the outermost circles, including the new one that we just added, and then click calculate and let's preview everything except for the profile toolpath. So we're gonna preview visible, and now you could see it is still the exact opposite design, except this time we now have a border going around it, and that's because we added an additional line and selected everything.
So that is another option as well. Just keep in mind when you do that, you will have your design grow a little bit. You can also offset inwards if your design allowed it, and you'll see if we run that profile toolpath again, now that we added that border, it will cut it away.
So that may be counterintuitive if that's not what you wanted. So what I would recommend there is going to the outermost line again, and then offset that one more time, any distance you want, and then we'll go back to the profile toolpath by double clicking on it.
And this time I am going to deselect the original one we selected. And now I'm gonna select the outermost circle and then click calculate. And then I'm gonna reset and preview all those toolpaths again. And now you see we have the exact opposite carve, except this time we have a little bit of a border on the outermost ring there.
So that's another great look that you can do as well. And you'll notice on this one over here, by using the VCarve toolpath, you're gonna be left with this little angled ridge on the edge. So to combat that, you would want to offset that line for the VCarve Toolpath, and I'll show you how to do that. So what we would do is select that outer circle, click offset, and I would say at least go an eighth, let's go a quarter just be safe and click close.
And then I am going to go back to that VCarve Toolpath, the first one that we made. And I'm gonna hold shift to deselect that inner circle and then hold shift to select our new outer circle. So now the VCarve Toolpath is gonna carve up to that outer circle, but the profile toolpath is still cutting along that original circle.
So now if we click calculate and we can zoom in here and preview this. So preview visible, and now you'll see that will get rid of that ridge and then the profile toolpath will come back and carve it right up to that original circle and that will leave you with a nice square edge.
So that is how you fix that, if you wanted to carve all the way up to your edge. All right, so those are some tips how to reverse the entire design, but sometimes you may only want to reverse part of the design. So for example, the letters are now raised and then the star is carved, and then it's the opposite over here, the letters are carved and the star is raised.
So sometimes you may want those to be the exact same. Either them both carved or them both raised. So let's look at how to do that. So down here at the bottom, we have the exact same vectors that we started with up at the top. So in order to get these to carve the opposite way, you would have to offset one of these lines.
So I will offset this inner circle using the offset tool, and then I'll go inwards and click offset, and then click close. And now if we go to our VCarve toolpath, Let's select all of this and click calculate and then click preview visible toolpaths. You could see now the letters are raised and the stars raised, and then we have this little ring around the center, so that's how you can get your entire design to be raised.
And then if you wanted the opposite effect, we can simply offset that circle again. So we're gonna go inwards and then close. And now let's go back to our VCarve toolpath. This time we're gonna select everything except hold shift and deselect the outermost ring. Now click calculate, and then click preview visible toolpaths.
And you'll see now we have everything carved. And this particular one would probably carve the quickest because you're carving less area, whereas all these other designs, you're carving a lot of area. This one on the bottom left will probably take the longest to carve, and then the one on the bottom right would probably be the quickest to carve.
All right, so those are just a few options on how you can reverse your carvings and you can combine some of these techniques between different designs. So basically all you're doing is either making an offset or you are just deselecting one of the lines. And every time you do that, it will reverse the order of which it's carved.
And don't forget when you go to the 2D view and turn on the visibility of all the toolpaths, you can switch this to the solid view at the top and you'll see right away exactly what's being carved. So as you can see, all the purple areas are gonna be the areas that are carved, and that's a great tool for visualizing right up to your vectors.
Just keep in mind when you turn this solid view on, sometimes it slows down the performance of your computer, so you may notice a little bit of a lag when you're zooming in and out, and then you can always switch it back to the wire frame view at the top, and now it'll go a little bit quicker when you're zooming in and out.
All right. That's all for this lesson. If those tips helped you out, make sure you like and subscribe for more.
And a great way to visualize this is by creating the toolpaths and then turning them on by clicking the check box to make them active. And then in the 2D view, you will see the areas that are being carved. Now this will show up as a wire frame view representing the center line of the bit and the direction that it's going to cut.
But what's great is you can also turn this to a solid view. And that's gonna be at the very top of the top toolbar, and you'll see this button that says toggle toolpath 2D drawing style wire frame, or Solid. So if you click on that, you'll see it will turn to a purple solid color. And now this will show you the exact areas that are being carved.
And just by judging off this first one, you could see the vectors that were selected, were all of these vectors that we see in this design. So the way the carving works is outside of the outermost line is obviously not gonna be carved, and then inside of that line will be carved up until it reaches the next line, which in this case will be these letters and this inner circle, and then it's gonna skip the next part.
Which in this case, it'll skip the letters and it will skip this inner circle area, and then it'll carve the next shape inside of that shape. So in this case, it'll be this star. So basically what you're doing when you select multiple objects is you're gonna carve every other area of the design. So each time you have a closed vector inside of another closed vector, it'll be carved, then not carved, then carved, and then so on.
And I'm using the VCarve Toolpath for this because it will carve these nice, sharp corners where we have some finer detail. You can use the pocket toolpath and it's treated the exact same way, except you are not gonna be able to carve in those tighter areas like you can with a V bit. So that's the reason I am using that toolpath.
Okay, now that we understand that a little bit, let's remove our toolpaths and we'll start from scratch. Okay, here we are with the same design copied four times and we have no toolpaths. So what we're gonna do is create a toolpath for each one of these and see the differences between them all. And before I do that, I'm gonna create a simple profile toolpath, going all the way through the material on the outside of the outermost line.
And I'm just gonna select all four outer circles. And generally you want to do that last, but I'm gonna do this first just so we can see the differences as we go through these toolpaths. So I'm just gonna calculate that and we can preview that. And there's our four circles cut out. Now we're gonna carve our designs in each circle.
So for the very first one, we're gonna select all the vectors. So that's gonna be the outer circle and everything inside of it. And then we're gonna go to the VCarve toolpath. And like I said, depending on your design, you can also use the pocket toolpath for this. And since we have a large area to carve, I'm gonna do a flat depth of 0.08 inches.
I'll just use a 90 degree V-Bit for this, and a quarter inch Endmill to clear out the larger areas. Okay, so I'm just gonna click calculate on this and you'll see that will create our toolpath here. And now I will preview visible toolpaths. And you can see the design is gonna be no carve on the letters and no carve on that inside circle, and then carve on the opposite sides of those areas.
And that's because we selected all the vectors. So if you wanted to carve the opposite of this, what you would do is let's start a new VCarve toolpath. We would select all of our shapes again, except this time we can hold shift and deselect the outermost shape. Now that's gonna carve it exactly opposite of what we did in the last one.
So let's calculate that and you can see it looks different already. So let's click preview visible toolpaths. And there you go, you can see that's exactly opposite of the one on the left. And that's just because we deselected that outermost vector. So that's one way to do it. Another way you can do it is by adding another vector on the outside.
So I'll show you what that looks like. So I'm actually gonna reset the preview and go back to our 2D view and then take that outermost circle. And I'm gonna offset that using the offset tool. And I'm gonna go outwards, and let's just go a quarter inch and click offset. And then click close, and you'll see we have a new additional circle on the outside.
Now if we go back to that VCarve toolpath by double clicking on it to edit it. And now if we hold shift and select both the outermost circles, including the new one that we just added, and then click calculate and let's preview everything except for the profile toolpath. So we're gonna preview visible, and now you could see it is still the exact opposite design, except this time we now have a border going around it, and that's because we added an additional line and selected everything.
So that is another option as well. Just keep in mind when you do that, you will have your design grow a little bit. You can also offset inwards if your design allowed it, and you'll see if we run that profile toolpath again, now that we added that border, it will cut it away.
So that may be counterintuitive if that's not what you wanted. So what I would recommend there is going to the outermost line again, and then offset that one more time, any distance you want, and then we'll go back to the profile toolpath by double clicking on it.
And this time I am going to deselect the original one we selected. And now I'm gonna select the outermost circle and then click calculate. And then I'm gonna reset and preview all those toolpaths again. And now you see we have the exact opposite carve, except this time we have a little bit of a border on the outermost ring there.
So that's another great look that you can do as well. And you'll notice on this one over here, by using the VCarve toolpath, you're gonna be left with this little angled ridge on the edge. So to combat that, you would want to offset that line for the VCarve Toolpath, and I'll show you how to do that. So what we would do is select that outer circle, click offset, and I would say at least go an eighth, let's go a quarter just be safe and click close.
And then I am going to go back to that VCarve Toolpath, the first one that we made. And I'm gonna hold shift to deselect that inner circle and then hold shift to select our new outer circle. So now the VCarve Toolpath is gonna carve up to that outer circle, but the profile toolpath is still cutting along that original circle.
So now if we click calculate and we can zoom in here and preview this. So preview visible, and now you'll see that will get rid of that ridge and then the profile toolpath will come back and carve it right up to that original circle and that will leave you with a nice square edge.
So that is how you fix that, if you wanted to carve all the way up to your edge. All right, so those are some tips how to reverse the entire design, but sometimes you may only want to reverse part of the design. So for example, the letters are now raised and then the star is carved, and then it's the opposite over here, the letters are carved and the star is raised.
So sometimes you may want those to be the exact same. Either them both carved or them both raised. So let's look at how to do that. So down here at the bottom, we have the exact same vectors that we started with up at the top. So in order to get these to carve the opposite way, you would have to offset one of these lines.
So I will offset this inner circle using the offset tool, and then I'll go inwards and click offset, and then click close. And now if we go to our VCarve toolpath, Let's select all of this and click calculate and then click preview visible toolpaths. You could see now the letters are raised and the stars raised, and then we have this little ring around the center, so that's how you can get your entire design to be raised.
And then if you wanted the opposite effect, we can simply offset that circle again. So we're gonna go inwards and then close. And now let's go back to our VCarve toolpath. This time we're gonna select everything except hold shift and deselect the outermost ring. Now click calculate, and then click preview visible toolpaths.
And you'll see now we have everything carved. And this particular one would probably carve the quickest because you're carving less area, whereas all these other designs, you're carving a lot of area. This one on the bottom left will probably take the longest to carve, and then the one on the bottom right would probably be the quickest to carve.
All right, so those are just a few options on how you can reverse your carvings and you can combine some of these techniques between different designs. So basically all you're doing is either making an offset or you are just deselecting one of the lines. And every time you do that, it will reverse the order of which it's carved.
And don't forget when you go to the 2D view and turn on the visibility of all the toolpaths, you can switch this to the solid view at the top and you'll see right away exactly what's being carved. So as you can see, all the purple areas are gonna be the areas that are carved, and that's a great tool for visualizing right up to your vectors.
Just keep in mind when you turn this solid view on, sometimes it slows down the performance of your computer, so you may notice a little bit of a lag when you're zooming in and out, and then you can always switch it back to the wire frame view at the top, and now it'll go a little bit quicker when you're zooming in and out.
All right. That's all for this lesson. If those tips helped you out, make sure you like and subscribe for more.
