WELCOME!


It is hard to believe that it was almost ten years ago I witnessed a CNC router in action for the very first time. I was fascinated with what I saw and simply had to have one! Although I had been in the creative end of the three dimensional sign business for most of my life I didn't really know what I would do with one - but I just knew it could do fantastic stuff.

Through extensive research and LOTS of hands-on practice I quickly found out that my MultiCam router was capable of just about anything imaginable.This journal will chronicle that journey to date and continue each week with two or three entries as I continue to explore just what is possible with this wonderful tool... -dan

Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Which way to the bathroom?

We are down to the small utilitarian signs. The first are the washroom signs. These are the most important signs and hopefully by making them easily readable the staff won't have to constantly answer the most common question guests will ask. 

I did a search online to locate the symbols and then hand vectorized them in a few minutes. I sized them and placed them on a rectangle of the right size.


I then replaced the rectangle with a rough cut board shape as the signs are for the western area of the park.


First I created a flat relief.


I then imported a sandblasted woodgrain bitmap from the TEXTURE MAGIC COLLECTION. I stretched it vertically to fit the sign face onto the section of grain I liked.

 


The symbols were made into separate reliefs that were higher than the background. The original relief was 0.6" tall plus the woodgrain which raised it 0.15" for a total of .75"/ The symbol vectors were 0.9" high or 0.15 higher than the background (at it's highest point)



The symbol reliefs were then merged (highest) with the background relief.


As quick as that the file was ready to tool path and then sending off to the MultiCam.



The signs for the concessions and ticket area will be next.

-dan