Cutting out what I want to leave in place

I want to cut out a pattern like this one -

A simple snowflake. But when I try and load it into Aspire It wants to cut out this -

I’m just getting started with CNC routing and Aspire, so any advice would be helpful.

Is there a better program than Aspire for STL files? I also do 3d printing and am familiar with several slicing programs, but 3d printing and CNC run in opposite directions.

Looks like you have your tool paths reversed, on the interior cuts set it as interior profile and ensure the vectors are closed. And then for the external cut make it a separate profile cut with outside selected. To me without seeing the fule it seems as it is a pocket cut.

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You can draw a box around the snowflake and see if that would work. Be sure to leave tabs to keep your snowflake from melting when cut out.

One way to do this is to create vectors instead of carving the model. Open a new file in Aspire and import your stl. Save (export) the file as a DXF. It will appear in your drawing tab where you cab trace the DXF. Then clean up your new vectors and create toolpaths for that. You can actually delete the model in your modeling tab. For 2d carving it’s usually better to start with vectors rather than models.

In Vetrics all you need to do is set it for a profile cut.

In Carbide Create this would be done by:

Offsetting to the outside:

by endmill diameter plus 10%:

Then you can cut as a pocket:

It should be a similar process in other programs.

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