I am trying to create a spiral simular to the violin head except it would be cut into the piece, instead of being raised like the violin head (same style) typical to gun engraving or monogram engraving (see top section of engraved gun picture)

Hi pat, you will need to create some curves that are kind of like a hoop pointing upwards to use as the profile curves for your sweep, to give it the kind of of shape that you are looking for.

Like for instance the image shown here: http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=768.2

You may need to draw these in the front view so that they are upwards, and then move and rotate them into place before sweeping. I can give you an example if you want to post your .3dm file that has your curves in it.

But this kind of relief type work is not a particularly strong area for MoI - you will probably get better results with less work if you use a program that is specifically designed just for making relief type designs, like ArtCAM for instance.

You might also be interested in the ZSurf program which will create a relief type surface from an input bitmap, where height is controlled by the brightness of the image, so you use gradient fills to create bumps and things: http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=602.7

- Michael

photo vcarve from vetric would wok it uses depth map on colors darker the deeper load your pic and scale it to size thats what i use i do this type work for cabinets moldings etc

thanks for the help ....the vcarve software looks interesting I'm going to try the free download

hi smitty igot a couple of pics off of v carve is this what u want to do

that's it.. but I'll have to figure out vcarve first ...it looks like it's mostly for wood or large objects I do jewelry work so my pieces would be around 35-40 mm.. think it'll work for that.. I also see it's using their cuttin tools mine are smaller so would I have to import the design to my cutting software then use my tools to mill it out

hi smitty you can enter your on size tools feeds and speds in there software wnen you set up the file to cut ucan select a cutter or add any size and shape cutter u want ther help page has all the info