# How do I go from image top carving



## nvenezia (Jan 10, 2012)

Good Morning,
I would appreciate any information. I have been working with wood, furniture and turnings along with construction for 30 years. I have just purchased a zen cnc machine along with the Mach3 software. I would like to take an image and carve it into wood. I have the image but do not know where to start. I am considering the purchase of Artcam express. Is that a necessary component for what I want to do? I am totally lost with the software and where to start.


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## Trimax (Apr 9, 2009)

I dont know about artcam but i do know with vcarve you can take a photo and import
the image into the program and have it trace the image turning it into a vector that can be scaled and carved. Is that want your asking?


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## Noob (Apr 18, 2009)

Photovcarve from Vectric will do what you are looking for.

A $33 cost-effective alternative is Microcarve's (from CNCZone) program. I've tried the demo and ran the g-code in Mach 3, but never purchased it or cut the image.

Microcarve v4


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## RingNeckBlues (Apr 30, 2012)

You might take a look at shadermappro as well.


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