I wanted to see how far I could take the image tracing function. I was determined to take it beyond the normal vector type shapes I was used to.
I thought it would be interesting to see if I could trace an illuminated manuscript. The image below is from the Birds Head Haggadah approx c. 1300, which is timely as this weekend is the Jewish festival of Passover.
While I could have taken a more modern Haggadah image to replicate with less noise, I decided this would be an appropriate test of the new feature as it was done prior to the days of mass manufacturing.
I was very nervous on how the spotches would influence the capture and whether the background noise would permeate through the scanning feature, however the image capture results was amazing.
Here is a screenshot from Carbide Create.
Little side note I originally tried to scan the original 6000px x 4412px image, but took way too long. I ended up going with a smaller version (Link to image here)
Next step was to vCarve this. I personally have not had much luck vcarving in Carbide Create with this mount of detail, so I imported it into Vectric Vcarve.
There, I removed a few vectors that were noise associated with the old manuscript and modified a few overlapping vectors.
I then took a piece of 13” x 9.25” x 3/4 inch red oak hardwood that I purchased at Menards and gave it a quick coat of shellac prior to vCarving
Next I used a 60 degree vbit from Whiteside (1550) to carve into the wood, and the result is the following
Close up 1
Close up 2
close up 3
What’s unreal is that the carve included all the nikudot (which is the little dots and lines around the text). Additionally the image is true to the original.
It would obviously look better if it was twice the size, but am really happy with the result.
The next step is to cut the vcarve out of the wood, but was wondering if I should take any of the following steps prior
- Just lightly sand it and call it done
- Pour a black epoxy onto the wood and then surface it on the cnc machine (worried that the detail is too fine to do this step)
- Stain it with a dark wood stain. Assume I would get two different colors based on what was coated with shellac and what was not
- Something else?
- Combination
Summary:
In terms of results of the image trace, I am extremely impressed. While not the most polished piece of woodworking, I feel this was a worth edition to the Community Challenge as it really gave the new functionality a workout.
Last Note
I could see others converting illuminated pages from the New Testament, using epoxy and selling these on Etsy…especially if they look like stain glass cuts from @MikeG and @AndyC … see this thread Epoxy Gift Coasters - #73 by MikeG