What's the best cue-design software?
Thanks,
J.D.
Thanks,
J.D.
Best cue-design software?
- Thread starter J.D. Dolan
- Start date
skins said:
thats just a small investment for many hours of timeless fun!
chris
Are you talking about Cue-Design like Skins avatar? Or are you talking about CNC Software? We all need more info...J.D. Dolan said:
I want the software you used to work on your avatar withskins said:
billiardbum said:I want the software you used to work on your avatar with
Photoshop. those are actual photos of butt sleeves cropped and layered over a background of another picture of forearms that has had an monochrome embossing filter added to it. the software i use to initially design cues is CorelDraw. i then import the "flats" into an older simple 3d program oddly enough called Simply 3d. both have a significant learning curves but over some time you can get pretty decent results like these pretty quickly once your 3d templates are created. it gives you a decent representation of what the cue will look like finished. these examples are pretty old. they're before i had ungraded my textures of woods wraps and such..................
skins said:Photoshop. those are actual photos of butt sleeves cropped and layered over a background of another picture of forearms that has had an monochrome embossing filter added to it. the software i use to initially design cues is CorelDraw. i then import the "flats" into an older simple 3d program oddly enough called Simply 3d. both have a significant learning curves but over some time you can get pretty decent results like these pretty quickly once your 3d templates are created. it gives you a decent representation of what the cue will look like finished. these examples are pretty old. they're before i had ungraded my textures of woods wraps and such..................
have all those been made? some look familiar.
I think I saw some of that design from Colorado Cues before he went AWOL.merylane said:
Joey~Having Deja Vu~
merylane said:
some of them. the first one was done by Joe Gold. the second hasn't been done that exact way but the main long point has been done by Leonard Bludworth. in the collage, the ebony is the "Spire" design from Joe Gold as well and the BEM cue is his "Logo" point. the other two haven't been done yet. the next is a mock-up for a cue i designed for Carolina cues which has not been done yet and the last one, "Spike", Keith and i did about a year ago and we're doing one for bill at cornerstone with different wood combos and replacing all the malachite with silver.
cutter said:
Corel has a native program called Trace that is used. you create your drawing and then import it into Trace and save the trace as a DXF file. the program does have some limitations and it takes a while to figure out what to do within both the vector program and the trace program to output a "template" that's useable.
A little long-winded, but maybe helpful
Corel Draw is a vector program, so is AutoCAD - the problem being that they use different flavors of "vector". Through an exhaustive number of export filters (some more reliable than others) Corel art can be exported in many formats, the most useful of which are probably Adobe Illustrator (.ai) and Encapsulated Postscript. (.eps) I'd guess that a good CAD program should import one of these.
The only problem you should have when converting old Corel files is that you may need to use a older to middle-aged version to read the files. As newer versions are released, the program's core code changes, and the ability to read very old file formats starts to be dropped from the feature set.
I was a staunch Corel user until I tried FreeHand version 5, which had a more practical interface, with better design features geared toward 4-color Postcript print work rather than the all-in-one toolbox approach of Corel. Unfortunately, beginning with FreeHand 10, Macromedia started to compromise its ease-of-use and reliability for the sake of fancy gee-gaw features for Flash and web designers(?!). Today, the program hardly resembles its predecessors. A sad fate which has befallen most of the formerly great print design and drawing packages. I'm still using FH9.
Ken
cutter said:
Corel Draw is a vector program, so is AutoCAD - the problem being that they use different flavors of "vector". Through an exhaustive number of export filters (some more reliable than others) Corel art can be exported in many formats, the most useful of which are probably Adobe Illustrator (.ai) and Encapsulated Postscript. (.eps) I'd guess that a good CAD program should import one of these.
The only problem you should have when converting old Corel files is that you may need to use a older to middle-aged version to read the files. As newer versions are released, the program's core code changes, and the ability to read very old file formats starts to be dropped from the feature set.
I was a staunch Corel user until I tried FreeHand version 5, which had a more practical interface, with better design features geared toward 4-color Postcript print work rather than the all-in-one toolbox approach of Corel. Unfortunately, beginning with FreeHand 10, Macromedia started to compromise its ease-of-use and reliability for the sake of fancy gee-gaw features for Flash and web designers(?!). Today, the program hardly resembles its predecessors. A sad fate which has befallen most of the formerly great print design and drawing packages. I'm still using FH9.
Ken
Inventor
If you use Inventor you can export your sketches you used in designing a cue and import them into cam. From there you can create a program for either cutting pockets directly into the cue. Or if you are using a pantograph you can use the tool path to build a pattern. Here is an example of a simple design.
If you use Inventor you can export your sketches you used in designing a cue and import them into cam. From there you can create a program for either cutting pockets directly into the cue. Or if you are using a pantograph you can use the tool path to build a pattern. Here is an example of a simple design.
Canadian cue said:If you use Inventor you can export your sketches you used in designing a cue and import them into cam. From there you can create a program for either cutting pockets directly into the cue. Or if you are using a pantograph you can use the tool path to build a pattern. Here is an example of a simple design.
the problem with importing this Inventor file into cam program is that you will not get a correct representation of the size of the diamond because you didn't include radiuses the size of the cutter used that extend all the way to the sharp corners. you can notice this by looking at how close the inside ends of the diamonds are to the center dot in the Inventor file but how far apart they are from the dot in the cam file. the cutter stops short because it can't go any further because it cant fit. this needs to be done to simulate the diamonds pocket size correctly so the part will fit in. you have to make sure to make up 2 versions one for the pocket and one for the part. try telling the cam program you're using a 1 thousandth cutter (.001). it still wont be machinable that way but it will give you a better idea of what the inlay will look like in the stock.
Hi skins, In the example I provided I drew no radius on the diamonds and in the mastercam I used a 1/32" cutter. If I were to build the cue exactly as I pictured I would have to knife my corners in. If I were to radius the corners on the inlays I would do my original drawings with the same radius that I anticipate the cutter to have. So I do not believe your point to be a real issue, at least it hasn't been for me.
skins said:Photoshop. those are actual photos of butt sleeves cropped and layered over a background of another picture of forearms that has had an monochrome embossing filter added to it. the software i use to initially design cues is CorelDraw. i then import the "flats" into an older simple 3d program oddly enough called Simply 3d. both have a significant learning curves but over some time you can get pretty decent results like these pretty quickly once your 3d templates are created. it gives you a decent representation of what the cue will look like finished. these examples are pretty old. they're before i had ungraded my textures of woods wraps and such..................
Very Nice....Look into it, and maybe have some questions for you
Canadian cue said:
i knew what you were doing i was just trying to give you a way to see a better representation of what the "pocket inlays" layout would look like in the cam program by using a small test cutter. i've been doing this for 15 years and it really does help when you're mocking up a cue. you also can keep the parts non radiused and still give the pocket corners a small radius by using a multi tool pass maybe a .03125 end mill to rough, .020 to mill out most of the corner material and end with a .015 to finish. then mix dust from the wood with clear epoxy to fill whatever small areas are left. if you want to still cut in then that's ok also. you'll have a much easier time cutting in. of course as you do wider inlays the multi tool approach gets limited because the depth of cut for cutters will eventually washout at a certain point so this has to kept in mind when designing. this aspect is mute if you are 4th axis machining though.