One of the reasons that I use Vectric Aspire is that each custom job is unique and I know that there are several ways I can approach the work. I thought I would show you a couple ways it might be done. Bear in mind, there are a couple dozen more ways to do it, and I'll talk briefly about how that might be done, too!
First, here is an approach I enjoy. It attacks the job by assuming we'll carve the project from a single piece of material. I have the luxury of having built all the vectors, so I'm in full control of those. I begin by building a project that matches the size of the material I'll carve and it's thickness.... Next, I import the vectors I've created (in this case I built them in Illustrator based on an existing logo).
Once I have the vectors imported and sized to my material, I can choose how I want to carve. In this case, I've just quickly set up a series of pocket cuts to show you how it can be done. Each "pocket" removes material around or within a vector as I have selected. Here is a view of a couple of pockets cut "virtually":
One thing to note is that I can set the depth of each pocket and fully control how "deep" each layer goes. It's great to be able to view each modification I've made and Aspire even allows me to revert if one of them isn't what I wanted...awesome!
Once I've set the various pockets up, I can finish by setting up a perimeter carve to cut the shield out from the background material:
In this case, I've only carved these red lines to represent the flag stripe locations, as I will hand sculpt the "wave" in the flag. I certainly could do this model work in Aspire, but I like to keep certain things in my projects "hand" rendered. I think it adds to them.
In addition to this, I can add special features to the lettering or edges of the objects with relative ease...but let's look at another approach:
I could also choose to create a "grayscale" version of the logo:
I could then import this into Vectric Aspire and convert the image to a 3d file based on the various colors representing different heights:
I could then create a perimeter cut and again remove the waste once it finished...the only way to control the depths would be to modifiy the original gray scale colors.
Yet another way to handle this would be to bring in a full color image or use the grey scale and create vectors within Aspire from the image, those could then be used in a fashion similar to the first one shown here...
Another approach used by some folks is to cut out pieces using primarily perimeter cuts and to "build up" the project as a series of pieces. I did this on the McCauley lettering for a farm sign I recently created (see earlier posts)
The point?
Vectric Aspire allows me to build the project however best suits me, the material and the work. I have the freedom to control every aspect and ensure that I can control how much or little work I want to do on the back end. That's pretty awesome.
