Top 4 Tips for Cropping 3D Components
4 different methods for cropping 3D models or carving sections of 3D models. This lesson applies to Vectric VCarve Desktop, VCarve Pro, and Aspire.
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Video Transcript:
Hello everyone in this lesson, we're gonna be looking at my top four methods for cropping 3D models and how to carve only sections of a 3D model. So my first two methods are gonna be shown in VCarve and then I'll show additional two methods that you can use in Aspire. And for this example, we're gonna be using this piece of clip art, and we're gonna be showing how to carve just the center portion of the watch like you see on the right side over here.
And we're gonna be starting off with a new project here. And if you'd like to follow along, you can find this watch in the clip art library and it's under the objects and people section and it is called man's watch. So if you double click on that, that will bring it into your project.
And if we split our views up at the top, you could see the 3D view is going to be the entire watch that will be carved. So if we were just to import that and then go over to the toolpaths. And make a 3D finished toolpath we'll skip the roughing for this example. And if you were just to create a model boundary and click calculate, you can see that's going to create this toolpath here.
And if you preview it, it's going to carve the entire watch. So that's just fine if you want to carve the entire watch, but sometimes you may only want to carve a portion of the 3D model and not the entire thing. So that's what we're gonna be looking at today. So let's reset this preview and the first and easiest way to do this.
Is to draw a vector around the section that you want to keep, and then you can use the toolpath settings to carve just inside of that vector. So in this case, let's say we wanted to turn this into a clock face instead of a watch face. So we could just cut out the circle here in the center and remove the button on the side and the watch band.
So to do that, we can go to our drawing tab and select the draw circle tool and kind of eyeball it here in the center and click and drag out until we get the approximate diameter. And you can see we're gonna have to shift this to the left a little bit. So we can just double click on that and use our arrow keys to nudge it in the direction that we want to go.
We'll say right about there's pretty close. Maybe just make it a little bit bigger. That looks pretty close. You can get it as, um, close as you'd like, we're gonna call that close enough for this lesson. Now you can see that that circle goes around just the center, uh, face of the watch. So now if we go back to that, toolpath by double clicking on it.
And this time, if we change the machining limit boundary to selected vectors, And select that vector around the watch face and click calculate. That's now only going to carve what was inside of that boundary. So now if we click preview, you could see it only carved the watch face. And it did go outside a little bit and that's because if we go back to our settings, We have a boundary offset here.
So I'm gonna put that back down to zero and click calculate and then reset the preview. And there we go. Now you can see it's only carving the watch face, and now you can use that same circle with the profile toolpath and cut that out with an endmill and you'd be left with just the watch face. And this is just for an example, but you can use this with any type of 3D model, just by drawing a simple vector around the area that you want to carve.
You can also do that in detailed areas where you want to carve with a smaller tool, and then you can carve the rest of the shape with a larger tool. And that allows you to carve the detailed areas with the smaller tool and still have the speed of the larger tools in the less detailed areas. Okay, so that was method number one.
Now we're gonna look at method number two, and this one is a little bit different. So we're gonna reset our preview. And this time we're going to actually affect the 3D model instead of the toolpath. So, as you could see on the right side here, we have our 3D model complete and we still have that vector drawn there.
So if we wanted to cut the 3D model by itself, Inside of VCarve you can go to your modeling tab and you don't have too many modeling tools within VCarve, but you do have an option that's called level clipping. So inside of this level that the watch is in, you would right click on the level and you wanna make sure the vector is selected.
And then you come down to clipping and you click apply. Now you can see over in the 3D model that actually cut away the 3D model outside of the vector boundary that we created. So now you can add additional 3D models to this and combine them together without having the additional watchband out there in your way.
So that's another way you can do this, where you can add additional 3D models to this, and not be limited to those toolpath boundaries. And now we can go back into the toolpath settings and now you can go with the model boundary again with the boundary offset, and it will not be affected by the watchband anymore.
So now if we click calculate, you could see it's still only carving the center portion. And now when we carve that all of the outer boundary has been carved without leaving that little bump from the watch band. And just keep in mind when you use this method, when you move the shape in the 2D view or the 3D view, it will be affected by that clipping, that clipping is dynamic.
So you still have that watchband there, but it's only being hidden because it was outside of that vector boundary. So, if you want that clipping to stay with the 3D model, you have to move them together. So I'm gonna do edit, undo, move. And if we select both the 3D model and hold shift and select the 2D vector, now we can move these together.
Let's say we wanted it up here. Now you can see it's still remembering the last location of that vector boundary. So now what you have to do after you move it is right click on the level, go down to clipping and then click update. And now it'll update to the new location and then just recalculate your toolpath again, and it'll be in the new location.
So just keep that in mind when you're using the clipping method. All right, so that's my top two methods for VCarve. Now let's go into Aspire to look at an additional two methods. Okay so here we are in Aspire and you could see, we do have many different, additional tools that we can use within the modeling tab.
And these additional tools allow more options for cutting the 3D models. So we have the same model in here that we used in the last example, except this time, I'm gonna show you a little bit different method for tracing this
now in VCarve or Aspire, there is an option to create a vector boundary around the selected component. And if you click on that, that will automatically draw this 2D vector around the entire component. But in this example, we only want that center portion. So I'm gonna delete that vector. Another option you have for tracing just parts of a 3D model is by using the bitmap trace tool.
Since this object is considered a gray scale image in the 2D view. You can go to your drawing tab and use the trace bitmap tool. And you can see, you can change the color threshold here to only show just portions of the 3D model. So for instance, you can see the clock hands are being outlined there.
Now, if we click preview this traces, all the gray objects. Now you can see it didn't quite trace the center like we wanted it. And that's because the way the color is, it's not allowing us to select just that part there. So I'm gonna show you another trick for this. So I'm gonna close this and not save it.
And when you click on this object, you could see that the watch band is darker and the watch face is a lighter color. And that has to do with the height of the model. In the 3D view, you could see the higher components are gonna be lighter. And the lower components are gonna be darker and that affects the way it's traced with the bitmap trace tool.
So if you ever want to trace it in the opposite way, what you can do is go to the modeling tab and then right click on the component. And switch the combined mode. So right now we're set to add. So if we switch this combined mode to subtract, you can see that just made it a negative image of the way it was before.
And that's just a temporary step to be able to trace this center portion. So now the watch face is darker because now it's the lowest part of the component. So now if we go back to our drawing tab and then go to the trace bitmap tool, And then play with the color threshold and you can see, as I turn this down right there, it's only showing the center of the watch face as well as these four dots here.
So we obviously don't wanna trace those four dots. And if we click preview right now, it's gonna trace everything that's showing. So if you only want to trace the watch center, you can draw a selection box around that part that you want to trace. And then click preview, and now it's gonna disregard anything outside of that box.
And there we go, we just traced the center of the watch without tracing anything else. Now we're gonna click apply to save that, and then we're gonna click close. And now you can see, we have that 2D vector around just that center part there. And you may have to do a little bit of editing. Like you could see right here, there's a little bit off there.
So you could just type the letter N to go to node editing. And this was grouped, so we could just click yes to ungroup. And now we could just select these nodes here and drag them up. And select these nodes down here and drag them down. And you don't have to be too perfect with this because if it's outside of the shape, that's okay.
As long as it's not into another part of the component. Okay so that's our shape around the center portion. Now we're gonna look at how we can clip that away from the rest of the model. So the first thing we have to do is fix our combined mode. So we're gonna go back to the modeling tab and we're gonna right click on that component and switch the combined mode to add.
And now it's back to normal and our 2D vector is still there around the center portion. And everything I just showed you there can be done in VCarve as well. That's not exclusive to Aspire. But what I'm about to show now is only available in Aspire. So our new, additional two options for trimming this 3D model is by using the 3D modeling tools.
So the first option we have here is clear inside or clear outside of the selected vector. So with this vector selected and holding shift and selecting the 3D component. If we select this first option and that's called clear inside. If you click on that, you could see that's gonna have the opposite effect of what we want.
That actually cleared away the watch face and left the watch band. And these tools here are a permanent feature. This is not like the level clipping that is dynamic. So once you clear that away, it's gone for good. Until you go back to undo. So if we click edit, undo, that will bring it back. And now if we do that same technique, we're gonna select both of those and then click clear outside of the selected vector.
Now it just permanently removed everything outside of that vector and now you can see we're left with just the watch face. And like I said, that's a permanent solution. So it will remove everything outside of the vector and once you save this file and close it down, you're not gonna be able to get that back, so just be aware of that.
You still have the option to use a level clipping inside of Aspire as well. Okay so that's the first method in Aspire. Now I'm gonna click edit undo to bring that back. Now, I'm gonna show you one last method here and that's by using the tool that's called split selected component.
So we're gonna select the component and hold shift and select the vector. And then if we click the split button, which looks like a pair of scissors, that's actually gonna cut the component, but still leave everything intact and it's gonna create a new copy of the component.
And you can see, we now have the letter A, which in this case is the watch face and the letter B, which is now the watch band. And now we still have both of these components in here and we can hide the visibility of one and you'll be left with just the other component and you can swap those back and forth. And you could see both of them. And we also have the ability to edit these independently.
So now we can increase the size of one. Let's say, if you wanted the watch face a little bit thicker, you can go to the component properties and increase the shape height, and you'll see, that will only affect that section of the model. And you'll see, that gives you a lot more control of your components.
So that's a method you can use to either just cut sections out or edit individual sections of a model. And now if we only wanted to carve that centerpiece, we can either delete the second piece or just temporary hide it to make our toolpaths for just that centerpiece. Okay so that's my top four methods for cutting 3D components.
If those helped you out, make sure you like and subscribe for more.
And we're gonna be starting off with a new project here. And if you'd like to follow along, you can find this watch in the clip art library and it's under the objects and people section and it is called man's watch. So if you double click on that, that will bring it into your project.
And if we split our views up at the top, you could see the 3D view is going to be the entire watch that will be carved. So if we were just to import that and then go over to the toolpaths. And make a 3D finished toolpath we'll skip the roughing for this example. And if you were just to create a model boundary and click calculate, you can see that's going to create this toolpath here.
And if you preview it, it's going to carve the entire watch. So that's just fine if you want to carve the entire watch, but sometimes you may only want to carve a portion of the 3D model and not the entire thing. So that's what we're gonna be looking at today. So let's reset this preview and the first and easiest way to do this.
Is to draw a vector around the section that you want to keep, and then you can use the toolpath settings to carve just inside of that vector. So in this case, let's say we wanted to turn this into a clock face instead of a watch face. So we could just cut out the circle here in the center and remove the button on the side and the watch band.
So to do that, we can go to our drawing tab and select the draw circle tool and kind of eyeball it here in the center and click and drag out until we get the approximate diameter. And you can see we're gonna have to shift this to the left a little bit. So we can just double click on that and use our arrow keys to nudge it in the direction that we want to go.
We'll say right about there's pretty close. Maybe just make it a little bit bigger. That looks pretty close. You can get it as, um, close as you'd like, we're gonna call that close enough for this lesson. Now you can see that that circle goes around just the center, uh, face of the watch. So now if we go back to that, toolpath by double clicking on it.
And this time, if we change the machining limit boundary to selected vectors, And select that vector around the watch face and click calculate. That's now only going to carve what was inside of that boundary. So now if we click preview, you could see it only carved the watch face. And it did go outside a little bit and that's because if we go back to our settings, We have a boundary offset here.
So I'm gonna put that back down to zero and click calculate and then reset the preview. And there we go. Now you can see it's only carving the watch face, and now you can use that same circle with the profile toolpath and cut that out with an endmill and you'd be left with just the watch face. And this is just for an example, but you can use this with any type of 3D model, just by drawing a simple vector around the area that you want to carve.
You can also do that in detailed areas where you want to carve with a smaller tool, and then you can carve the rest of the shape with a larger tool. And that allows you to carve the detailed areas with the smaller tool and still have the speed of the larger tools in the less detailed areas. Okay, so that was method number one.
Now we're gonna look at method number two, and this one is a little bit different. So we're gonna reset our preview. And this time we're going to actually affect the 3D model instead of the toolpath. So, as you could see on the right side here, we have our 3D model complete and we still have that vector drawn there.
So if we wanted to cut the 3D model by itself, Inside of VCarve you can go to your modeling tab and you don't have too many modeling tools within VCarve, but you do have an option that's called level clipping. So inside of this level that the watch is in, you would right click on the level and you wanna make sure the vector is selected.
And then you come down to clipping and you click apply. Now you can see over in the 3D model that actually cut away the 3D model outside of the vector boundary that we created. So now you can add additional 3D models to this and combine them together without having the additional watchband out there in your way.
So that's another way you can do this, where you can add additional 3D models to this, and not be limited to those toolpath boundaries. And now we can go back into the toolpath settings and now you can go with the model boundary again with the boundary offset, and it will not be affected by the watchband anymore.
So now if we click calculate, you could see it's still only carving the center portion. And now when we carve that all of the outer boundary has been carved without leaving that little bump from the watch band. And just keep in mind when you use this method, when you move the shape in the 2D view or the 3D view, it will be affected by that clipping, that clipping is dynamic.
So you still have that watchband there, but it's only being hidden because it was outside of that vector boundary. So, if you want that clipping to stay with the 3D model, you have to move them together. So I'm gonna do edit, undo, move. And if we select both the 3D model and hold shift and select the 2D vector, now we can move these together.
Let's say we wanted it up here. Now you can see it's still remembering the last location of that vector boundary. So now what you have to do after you move it is right click on the level, go down to clipping and then click update. And now it'll update to the new location and then just recalculate your toolpath again, and it'll be in the new location.
So just keep that in mind when you're using the clipping method. All right, so that's my top two methods for VCarve. Now let's go into Aspire to look at an additional two methods. Okay so here we are in Aspire and you could see, we do have many different, additional tools that we can use within the modeling tab.
And these additional tools allow more options for cutting the 3D models. So we have the same model in here that we used in the last example, except this time, I'm gonna show you a little bit different method for tracing this
now in VCarve or Aspire, there is an option to create a vector boundary around the selected component. And if you click on that, that will automatically draw this 2D vector around the entire component. But in this example, we only want that center portion. So I'm gonna delete that vector. Another option you have for tracing just parts of a 3D model is by using the bitmap trace tool.
Since this object is considered a gray scale image in the 2D view. You can go to your drawing tab and use the trace bitmap tool. And you can see, you can change the color threshold here to only show just portions of the 3D model. So for instance, you can see the clock hands are being outlined there.
Now, if we click preview this traces, all the gray objects. Now you can see it didn't quite trace the center like we wanted it. And that's because the way the color is, it's not allowing us to select just that part there. So I'm gonna show you another trick for this. So I'm gonna close this and not save it.
And when you click on this object, you could see that the watch band is darker and the watch face is a lighter color. And that has to do with the height of the model. In the 3D view, you could see the higher components are gonna be lighter. And the lower components are gonna be darker and that affects the way it's traced with the bitmap trace tool.
So if you ever want to trace it in the opposite way, what you can do is go to the modeling tab and then right click on the component. And switch the combined mode. So right now we're set to add. So if we switch this combined mode to subtract, you can see that just made it a negative image of the way it was before.
And that's just a temporary step to be able to trace this center portion. So now the watch face is darker because now it's the lowest part of the component. So now if we go back to our drawing tab and then go to the trace bitmap tool, And then play with the color threshold and you can see, as I turn this down right there, it's only showing the center of the watch face as well as these four dots here.
So we obviously don't wanna trace those four dots. And if we click preview right now, it's gonna trace everything that's showing. So if you only want to trace the watch center, you can draw a selection box around that part that you want to trace. And then click preview, and now it's gonna disregard anything outside of that box.
And there we go, we just traced the center of the watch without tracing anything else. Now we're gonna click apply to save that, and then we're gonna click close. And now you can see, we have that 2D vector around just that center part there. And you may have to do a little bit of editing. Like you could see right here, there's a little bit off there.
So you could just type the letter N to go to node editing. And this was grouped, so we could just click yes to ungroup. And now we could just select these nodes here and drag them up. And select these nodes down here and drag them down. And you don't have to be too perfect with this because if it's outside of the shape, that's okay.
As long as it's not into another part of the component. Okay so that's our shape around the center portion. Now we're gonna look at how we can clip that away from the rest of the model. So the first thing we have to do is fix our combined mode. So we're gonna go back to the modeling tab and we're gonna right click on that component and switch the combined mode to add.
And now it's back to normal and our 2D vector is still there around the center portion. And everything I just showed you there can be done in VCarve as well. That's not exclusive to Aspire. But what I'm about to show now is only available in Aspire. So our new, additional two options for trimming this 3D model is by using the 3D modeling tools.
So the first option we have here is clear inside or clear outside of the selected vector. So with this vector selected and holding shift and selecting the 3D component. If we select this first option and that's called clear inside. If you click on that, you could see that's gonna have the opposite effect of what we want.
That actually cleared away the watch face and left the watch band. And these tools here are a permanent feature. This is not like the level clipping that is dynamic. So once you clear that away, it's gone for good. Until you go back to undo. So if we click edit, undo, that will bring it back. And now if we do that same technique, we're gonna select both of those and then click clear outside of the selected vector.
Now it just permanently removed everything outside of that vector and now you can see we're left with just the watch face. And like I said, that's a permanent solution. So it will remove everything outside of the vector and once you save this file and close it down, you're not gonna be able to get that back, so just be aware of that.
You still have the option to use a level clipping inside of Aspire as well. Okay so that's the first method in Aspire. Now I'm gonna click edit undo to bring that back. Now, I'm gonna show you one last method here and that's by using the tool that's called split selected component.
So we're gonna select the component and hold shift and select the vector. And then if we click the split button, which looks like a pair of scissors, that's actually gonna cut the component, but still leave everything intact and it's gonna create a new copy of the component.
And you can see, we now have the letter A, which in this case is the watch face and the letter B, which is now the watch band. And now we still have both of these components in here and we can hide the visibility of one and you'll be left with just the other component and you can swap those back and forth. And you could see both of them. And we also have the ability to edit these independently.
So now we can increase the size of one. Let's say, if you wanted the watch face a little bit thicker, you can go to the component properties and increase the shape height, and you'll see, that will only affect that section of the model. And you'll see, that gives you a lot more control of your components.
So that's a method you can use to either just cut sections out or edit individual sections of a model. And now if we only wanted to carve that centerpiece, we can either delete the second piece or just temporary hide it to make our toolpaths for just that centerpiece. Okay so that's my top four methods for cutting 3D components.
If those helped you out, make sure you like and subscribe for more.
