Wire Frame an image

[fizzygas]

Hi

I seem to remember while learning Xara coming across the ability to produce a wire frame from an image and have searched the forum but drawn a blank.
I use a cnc machine and carve images into acrylic sheet, so being able to carve wire frame designs taken from an image would be very useful.
I have used the bitmap tracer and was sure it was connected to this but cannot remember the link.

Thanks for any help in advance
John

[zaphodeist]

Window>>View quality>>Outlines

Depends on the image though, a photo will just produce a rectangle

[Egg Bramhill]

I agree with John. Photo's just create a rectangle. Xara bitmap tracer is not up to what you require. Have you looked at:

http://www.vectric.com/products/vcarve/trial.html

[fizzygas]

Hi Thanks to both of you.
I did purchase a copy of V Carve pro and it does do a very good job of converting an image to a wire frame graphic.
I just wanted to explore what little I could remember in Xara to compare any differences.
By the sound of you comments it sounds as this is not a strong area within Xara.
However if you don't open the door and look in you will never know.
Thanks for your comments really appreciated.
John

[Albacore]

Most CNC engraving machines will handle bitmap photos but it is not a carving in process. As bitmaps are made from pixels, digital dots of varying colours, what the engraver does is to accept a grayscale image and burn the blacks/greys with varying amount of power creating a picture. Only a small amount of knowledge is needed to get the best quality of image to use and there are a few vid tuts on the net to show you how. Looking at carve pro it uses the same process as I mentioned above but advises to use Corian as it doesn't melt the way acrylic does. If your CNC machine is set with a machine head like a router which would basically machine out the waste material I have never found acrylic even the cast variety which is way more expensive, maybe not as much as Corian, gets a great finish and I have tried. It is fine at machining shapes out of the flat sheets where a quick run down the edges with an oxide paper but with a photo being carved leaves a lot of hand finishing. I have tried many different feed rates to lessen the amount of finishing required but you just cant take any photo someone gives you. Much of the the good results that I have managed depended on the type of photo taken all must have a simple but a high difference in contrast. Sorry I don't want you to think that this can't be done it just all depends on the type of photo and to give a typical example is the standard photo of Einstein.

Looking at the Carve Pro site and watching the Liberator sign vid I think that if you had a poor piece of software given with your CNC machine then I might think of buying but $700 seems a lot of money. Most machines come with with OK software in my experience. If you have bought Xara and are using it I think that this programme would work well with any CNC machine because of its export filters it does for me. If you had some extra money lying about then you could buy Carve Pro but the only benefit is that after using the bitmap tracer you would have fewer nodes to edit. As Xara has all the rest, removeable noise control, threshold control and control of the number of colours produced. OK you would need to delete the white background as well out of your bitmap and there is more included with Carve Pro in relation to 3D printing control.