Hello,

I want to change 2D graphics say from Corel and other sources "BMP's mostly", to 3DM and than into MoI. I than want to bend and bow and blow up on Z axis it's features to render a 3D version and than import into a Cam program to generate the machine movements and router into wood.

I watched all the video's and reviewed most of the documentation for MoI. My question is do you recommend this modeling software for that purpose. I do not understand why you say it is not a good rendering software when it displayed my imported graphic's OK.

Mastercam Art has a package starting at about $ 6,500 that is tailored for that purpose, "2D to 3D renderings".

I am just overwhelmed at the possibilities with Moi, but I would be on a huge learning curve and have not accomplished even the simplest "transform" tasks.

Please let me know if MoI will work well for this purpose.

Thanks,

Bill Wulkan

Wulcan, Creating a "relief" from a bitmap is a more specialized softwrae. Most "Cam" packages will offer something like this. THere is a free one to use with MoI called ZSurf. Find it here:

http://mwt.net/~sjedging/ZSURF4.zip

Read a bit about it from here:

http://www.kf12.com/blogs/techno/2007/08/zsurf/

I wouldnt start with the 6500 dollar software. There are other options.

With that being said, you can save your corel drawing as a dxf and work it in MoI too. THis would be manual modeling and not the same as the relief thing, and, why not just draw it in MoI now!

I made this with "BobCad".

Hi Bill, yeah like Burr mentions ZSurf is a great way to get started with that kind of a thing.

Here are some additional links to some discussions on using it with MoI:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=863.2
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=602.7
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=863.2
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=636.1

Sometimes that method of doing things based directly off of heights coming from a bitmap image is called "two-and-a-half D" (2 1/2 D) rather than "3D".

But MoI is not itself directly focused on that method of working - the main focus of the tools in MoI is more for modeling "full 3D parts".


There are some other programs out there that are more specifically designed to do that kind of bitmap-based cutting - you mentioned MasterCAM Art, and there is also a different program called "ArtCAM" which is also pretty popular for this kind of stuff.

Another one that I've heard of that I think is similar is "VCarve Pro", which is not quite as expensive as the others.

Since these other programs are focused exclusively on this method of cutting based on getting heights from an image, they will tend to be easier to use for that.

- Michael

Here's the links for the programs ArtCAM & VCarve.

http://www.artcam.com/

http://www.vectric.com/