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pre

Tutorial

We would like to congratulate you for buying CimaGraphi Product.

The CimaGraphi is in fact a package containing four modules.

In this tutorial we will introduce the basic tools of those programs.

 We will start with the Trace:

TRACE,                      GRAPHICAD,                          P2P ,                             MILL,                            RESULTS,                                 HOMEPAGE.

                          part1

General

CimaGraphi’s main purpose is to design and manufacture part with an artistic flavor. The design modules include Trace (Raster to vector conversion and graphic editing), GraphiCad (Drafting and text handling) and Picture To Part (P2P – 3D surface design and editing)). The manufacturing module is the Mill (CAM module). The following tutorial takes you through a step by step journey through Cimagraphi’s design tools leading up to the actual production of a part.

 
Start image -> end result


Trace: trace In this tutorial Trace will be used to load a bitmap (raster) image and convert it into a vector image. This is required so as a machine will be able to produce the part. Once the conversion has been done, we will use several of the Trace modules basic editing tools to improve and modify the result.                                                                                                                                                                             

Important issue – A high quality image will reduce dramatically the time required to edit, generate and eventually produce the part. Invest some time with an image editing software (PhotoShop) to clean up a poor image. A little effort in achieving a good quality image can save you a lot of time in the long run.

1. Open a picture … (example: Coat of Arms.bmp) opencoat
2. We will make an Outline of the picture.
     Press on Outline out and in the Dialog box on OK ok
3. If we want to see only the Outlines we created
    Press on Unshow Picture unshow(Click on the icon to Show/Unshow the picture).
             The original picture:                                                                                                        The outlined picture:

coatbmp                                                                               1212     

Like we saw in this picture it was quite easy. The outline we created is identical to the original picture because the quality of the picture was good enough.
However if the outline isn't clear enough or needs corrections we will have to use the editing tools as follows:
4. To start editing first we need to select a chain. Press on Edit Chain editch(Select the Chain that you want to edit).
5. Select a chain by clicking with the mouse on it. Note that along the chain control points will be displayed. Square control points             represent a corner, while round control points represent curves. Select a control point by clicking on it and dragging it (While the           mouse is still pressed). Move the CP (Control Point) until the curve represents the image behind in the best way.
line
6. Use the SHIFT button and click on a CP to delete an unnecessary CP.
7. Click between to CP’s to add an additional CP

In  Edit Chain mode you can:editch

-         Select a Chain by clicking on it and then move with the mouse.

-         Move Chain Points (click on the selected point and move it).

-         Connect two chains (click on the edge of one chain and place it on the edge of another chain to unite them).

-          Add points – Clicking between to control points will add a new control point.

-          Delete points – Clicking on a control point while holding the SHIFT button pressed will delete the control point.

 

 Another two buttons making life easier: 2b   

      Line filter and Curve filter, they are combining between points, for

      Instance If i need to make a straight line, I can use to Line/Curve filter,

      I will mark the First point and another point in the relative middle,

      And the last point will set the Line/Curve that we require.

break Brake ChainbrokeBrake the Chain between the selected points,

        Click on the selected point to break the chains connecting it.

del Delete Chain: Remove all the selected chain,

         Click on a Point on the Chain and it will be erased.

         (This option will delete everything on the chain)

8. Save the Changes … (Coat of Arms.con)      save    , when "Save Picture Background" prompted, click on yes

    (Save picture background is the original picture we can choose not to save it and to save only the outlines).

9. Press on Edit   edit now press on Mark All.mark. Or make sure no chain is selected (Press the ESC key)   

10.Press on Copy.copy to transfer the outlines from the Trace. At this point the outline shape can be pasted into any of the

     other Cimagraphi modules.

 

 

 

 

We will now going to copy the work we made in the Trace to GraphiCad,

And we will create from the original outlines different layers.



         


GraphiCAD    graphicad

The GraphiCad module handles precision draft along with creative tools and text handling. In the following section we are going to use transformation tools to position the graphics in the correct place and split the design into layers



                                                                                                                                              1.  We will now begin by pasting the outline, press on Pastepaste
2.  Click on Editedit, click on Mark all mark
3. Now we are going to Center the outline to (0, 0).
    Click on Transformtrans, Click on Movemove
    In the Move window on Action mark Move, the X: 0, the y: 0.
Another Important issue is the Anchor Sign anchor The Mark of an anchor means
The relative position we wants in this example we want the center to be at (0, 0).

    movediag

Click on ok2 , the whole outline jumped to (0, 0)
4. Now we are going to create layers.
    Select the "Out Coat" chain and Drag in to the Group Manager. (The Group Manager is located at the bottom left of the screen).

    group

A new layer will be created, to rename the layer just right click on it and click on rename,  Rename it as  out coat

Tip: Use the eyeto Show/Unshow the Layer, when it's open, you can see the layer, to close, click on it, it will appearceye,

It will be easier to mark other chains if you don't see the created layer

Tip: to select more than one Chain at the same time, click CTRL on your Keyboard.

5. Because Using different layers are important let's Practice it.
    We will do the same that you have done:
    Follow the table and drag the Chains as a different layers as followed by the Example under.

Because Using different layers are important let's Practice it.
We will do the same that you have done:
Follow the table and drag the Chains as a different layers as followed by the Example under.

exmp

In the end you'll see all the layers at the Group Manager the same as in the table
(The exact colors aren't needed), you can Click on Show all Layersimage  and You'll see every chain in a different layer color.
 
circlebla   



6. Now to see how simple it is, we will make an addition to the outline we made.
    We will make a new layer for The circle, we will call the new layer In Circle.

tip: to do so, fist, create a new layer by clicking on +in the window we will call the name as Inner Circle, Click Ok , now the new layer will appear at the layer list as incirc, it means that the new geometry will be made at the marked layer.

Let's Make a Circle by using the Circle by Center and Radius +r  The Radius should be 100 and the X: 0 and y: 0.
7. Create a new Layer called Outer Circle; create a bigger circle with radius 125 in Position X: 0, Y: 0.

This is the result:    
comp

Now we are going to Add Text to the circles.
8.  Go to Text Mode by Clicking on textmode
9. Create a New Layer, name it GraphiTech.
10. In Text Mode, click on font font and Change the font to Arial Black Bold and click on ok2.
11. Double Click in an empty space on the screen to Write without problems.
12. Write 'GRAPHITECH', all in Capital Letters.
13. Mark the Graphitech Layer and Select, from the Text Menu, Text Along the Curve abc.
14. Insert the Text by Two Curves 2c, proportional to the curves by selecting the point in the curve str
      Now the program will require four relative points :
The First two points:

The first click on the left side of the out circle, as close to Y: 0 as possible

The second click on the Right side of the out circle, as close to Y: 0 as possible

The Seconds two points:

The first click on the left side of the in circle, as close to Y: 0 as possible

The second click on the Right side of the in circle, as close to Y: 0 as possible

045

17. Save the Changes … (Coat of Arms.gcd)      save coat
18. Click on Editedit and on Mark allmark
19. Click on Copy copy. Once again this makes the entire design available in all of Cimagraphi’s modules.


Picture to Part    p2p

Picture To Part is an artistic surface modeler. It provides tools to generate surfaces by embossing 2D shapes, surface manual sculpting, Shade analysis and more. Components designed in the P2P can be put together in an Assembly mode. This enables the re-use of design components in many jobs and with great freedom.


                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     1. Click on Pastepaste
2. In the P2P markings have a different meaning, the layer panel have five Columns: Color, Showshow, Include, and Exclude.

layer

Now let's unmark all the layers by pressing on their V on include.
3. Create a New Component by click on Component comp and on New Component ncomp
Tip: The Components list can be see it at the bottom of the screen,
        You can create a new component by clicking right to the component
       
Available on the bottom on the screen.
components

Like in this example you can see that we can give a name to our components,
To do so just right click on the component and click on Name.

4. Select the Text layer and Drag them to text Component on the Bottom right Side. (You can't drag layers except to components          under the project itself)
     Now let's move our layers to the components.
     Here is a table of the components I made with those layers as followed:

Components:

Layers:

Circle

Inner circle

Outer circle

Shield

Shield outline

Shield inner line

Small crown

Small crown

Liz Flower

Liz flower upper

Liz flower

Crown

Crown out

Crown in

Crown ruby

Crown accessories

Text

Text


Now We are going to start embossing the components.
5. We will start on the circle component
6. Mark the Inner Circle and the Outer Circle layers
7.
Click at the Emboss Iconemboss, now you can check that the Layers that you want  
     To emboss are the correct ones at the Mark Box, Then click next next

group

8. Embossing Parameters:
    Select: Ellipse; Detail Size: 0.2; Height: 7; Emboss Type ; Rubber, 

    073

     Then click on ok

circle

Tip: Do not forget to Unmark after embossing a layer and before Marking

      The Next layer.

9. Continue with the embossing according to the following table by components:

Component:

Mark Layer

Section

Detail Size

Height

Emboss type:

Circle

Inner Circle

Extrude

0.2

2

stretched

Shield

Shield outline

Circular arc

0.2

4

Rubber

Shield

Shield inner line

Circular arc

0.1

2

Rubber

Small crown

Small crown

Circular arc

0.05

1.5

stretched

Liz Flower

Liz Flower

Ellipse

0.05

2

stretched

Liz Flower

Liz flower Upper

Ellipse

0.05

1

Stretched

Crown

Crown out

Ellipse

0.05

2

Rubber

Crown

Crown in

Ellipse

0.05

1

Rubber

Crown

Crown accessories

Ellipse

0.05

0.5

Rubber

Crown

Crown ruby

Ellipse

0.05

0.75

Rubber

Text

Text

Extrude

0.1

1

Rubber

The example should be close to:

Component Circle:

circle filled

Component shield:

shield

 

Component small crown:

small crown

 

Component Liz flower:

liz

 

Component crown:

crown

 

Component text:

text

Now after we finished working on all the components we need to assemble
All the components together, we will do so in the Assembly.
The question, "why we made several components and not only one or two" surely came up. The reason we made several components is to give more depth to the part we are creating. If we had only one or two parts then the embossing wouldn’t be accurate as we would like it to be, and in the assembly we have more options we can use. We can add components and adjust the components together.

What's left now is to assemble the components together.
In the P2P on the upper left we have the assemble icon.

10. Click on assembly
Now we can see on the bottom left all our components,
We can also choose different material for each component that will reflect the different components with different colors.

To choose a material for a component we just need to  click on the material and to choose which one we desire.
If we want to put a component above another component, its priority should be at a higher level. See on the example that the lower priority is the circle.
Above it is the shield. Another important issue is the material for color, Different colors or materials can prepare your work to be as close as you want  To create it by a machine or as your final product.

assembly box

11.  Now Mark the desire layer and Move it Forward or Backward updown
       Until you'll receive the following:

full

The last thing we need to do is to create the 2 small crowns that we got rid of in the beginning, lets press on replications replica
a window will appear:

       repbox

These are the correct settings it will create another 2 small crowns identical to the one we left.

Here is the example:

finished


12. Export to Mill clicking on output
13. When "Do you want to weld all the components together" prompted, click No,
      There is no advantage in welding and it takes a long time.
14. Click on ase then milling export
15.  Save the Changes … (Coat of Arms.p2p)      save saveas
16. Open Mill mill

Mill    mill


                                                                                                                                                                      
1. Import the Surface from P2P    sur          109import
2. The Billet Setup opens automatically
3. Select the correct Billet  elliptic  and then click on  pick and ok


circle

4. In this example the part was 250mm width so it's better if we scale it to a Smaller example (faster calculating time). First lets mark all the surfaces and Groups.
For Scaling let's click on the scale button scale and the dialog box will appear:

 scale box

We will change the width to 60 (all the other fields will adjust automatically),  Press on OK, and our Object has been scaled as we desired.
5. Now we need to adjust the billet to our scaled surface. Let's press on the billet Button billet  we just need to click on pick  and 10
6. Now we can start making our tool path's, in this part I've made 5 different tool path, we will do here only 2 of them, just to get               the idea. What we are going to do is to select a Tool to use choose the method we want it to operate.  
    1st Tool path:

6.1. Click on mac
6.2. Let us Mark the Group Layer "Outer circle", and the surface we imported From the P2P.
tip: In this case, we will select the Surfaces that we have export from P2P and Mark it.          

     ma

6.3. Click on next
6.4. We need to select a tool tool in this example the tool is:

macwiz

       Spherical tool, Height 2, diameter 6, Flutes 2.Click on next
6.5. Now we need to Select Technologytech

macwiz2
        And click on next.
6.6. Select Strategy - Face Milling face

facem

        And click on next
6.7. Select Surface finish (Finish)

 finisha

6.8. Click on calc to calculate the Tool Path
       At the designs screen you'll see the Tool Path

      des

After we have finished all the work we need to output the tool paths to our machine.
7. Output to Machine, Click on out
7.1 Select Tool Path

  tool
7.2. Click on next
7.3 Give a name to the output file and a correct path

path

7.4 Click on process

The Results:


                                                                                                  

After 6:55 hours this is the result we received:
res1

These are the results of the component and the result:

 Component Circle:

 circ circ2

Component shield:


                                       shield shield

Component small crown:

scrown scrown2

Component Liz flower:

lizf liz

Component crown:

crown crown

Component text:

textbef text


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