How to draw a star --- Carbide Create

WillAdams · August 29, 2019, 4:54am

While Carbide Create has a number of stars available, some regular stars are not provided:

Fortunately, it’s pretty straight-forward to draw a regular star:

Draw a circle which is the size of the desired star:

Draw a rectangle which is taller than the radius of the circle and duplicate it:

Rotate each angle by either positive or negative:

360° ÷ number of sides/points (5) ÷ 4 == 18° (for a 5 pointed star)

and drag them into alignment at the top center node of the circle:

Draw in a rectangle which is left-right centered and top-aligned with the circle:

Select a rotated rectangle and the drawn square and Boolean subtract:

Draw a square and position its top at the center of the circle and shift click on the shape and the square and Boolean subtract:

Duplicate a triangle:

Drag it on top of the original:

Select one triangle and the circle:

Rotate them by

360° ÷ number of sides/points (5) == 72° (for a 5 pointed star)

Repeat for each remaining point/arm.

Select the triangles:

Boolean Union everything together:

Tamarack · December 31, 2020, 1:41pm

Sorry to bump an old thread, but where are those stars you show in the first image? Is there a CC library of svg images? Thanks.

Julien · December 31, 2020, 1:49pm

There used to be, in earlier versions of CC. But it’s gone in latest versions (not sure when/if it will be reinstated)

In the meantime you could probably find a suitable vector of a star online (search for SVG files), or use a vector drawing program like Inkscape to draw it, then export it as SVG and import that in CC.

WillAdams · December 31, 2020, 1:53pm

The Library is moving on-line, see:

https://elements.carbide3d.com

Lookin4help · January 8, 2021, 4:32pm

Edward: I want to do something similar, but want my star to be 3D (I think that’s what you’d call it). In other words I don’t want to carve down into the wood to create a star. I want to remove wood so that the star rises out of the wood. I do believe I need to use a .png file, which I have, and in 3D view, looking directly down at the star it looks great, but if you rotate it things don’t look so good. Any advice? Thanks.

WillAdams · January 8, 2021, 5:44pm

Post the PNG file?

If you have a star you can extrude it up at an angle:

but if the points aren’t at the correct angle, will get a compound angle.

Lookin4help · January 8, 2021, 8:37pm

Andrew: I’ve attached the png file. I can get as far as the screen you show, but even so the image, when rotated, still look bad.

WillAdams · January 8, 2021, 9:00pm

That’s a pictorial representation, not a greyscale depthmap.

Have you tried re-drawing it?

Lookin4help · January 8, 2021, 9:30pm

I believe I can redraw it. However, would an svg file work? I have one of those I can immediately use.

WillAdams · January 8, 2021, 9:42pm

Place it on the background to redraw it:

Use the Curve tool to roughly draw one section:

Duplicate and mirror it:

and drag into alignment:

Duplicate and rotate the duplicates:

Since things don’t quite line up, do Boolean intersection:

Redraw the original shape using the centered point of the intersection shape:

Delete the other shapes and repeat:

with things now aligning correctly, continue until one arrives at:

Select everything and model it as desired:

Unfortunately the central point is still distorted.

Export to an SVG and open it in a suitable drawing program:

Draw two pairs of objects which when blended will have the desired grey shading:

Draw a pair of parallelograms which line up with the first and last elements:

Blend the objects together:

and duplicate and mirror and rotate as before:

Export to a pixel image:

and import as a texture:

which seems to model as desired:

Adjusting a bit:

Attached.star_redrawn_3Dmodel.c2d (231.4 KB)

Lookin4help · January 8, 2021, 10:21pm

William: Haven’t a clue how you do this so fast. YOU ARE GOOD. It’s going to take me considerably more time than you to do this. I’ll get back with you after I am done. Thanks

WillAdams · January 8, 2021, 10:57pm

First job out of college was drawing using Illustrator and/or Freehand for ~40 hrs. per week.

Lookin4help · January 9, 2021, 4:22pm

Andrew: I’m 75 and my eyes are not so good. It wasn’t until I opened your reply again to try working on this star that I noticed you did a very, very kind thing and attached a ready made star for me. I am touched and thankful. I’d like to ask just one more question, if I may. When I opened your attachment I was told that it was made on a newer version of Carbide Create than the one I have. I downloaded my version about two weeks ago, it is a trial version. Is there a newer trial version? Mine is build 474, built of 2020-07-20. Many thanks and blessings.

Julien · January 9, 2021, 4:28pm

Hi Mark,

The latest version of Carbide Create is 514 available here:

https://carbide3d.com/carbidecreate/

Lookin4help · January 9, 2021, 6:37pm

Andrew: I appreciate the star file you sent, but I also wanted to learn how to make it as well. I’ve attached my file and am wondering if you can take a look and comment on it. In the model mode the simulation looks “so so.” The arm are not a nice straight slop and look more like a sagging slope. When I go into the tool path 3D mode the simulation looks a layered 2D.

HOME MADE STAR.c2d (167.6 KB)

WillAdams · January 9, 2021, 7:02pm

As discussed/shown above, the angles of an even star like that don’t work for the modeling — you need the more acute version to make the angles come out as they ought, but unfortunately Carbide Create doesn’t agree on that, hence my needing to model each step w/ the blend.

The layered appearance is caused by the component being extruded up higher than the stock thickness:

Lookin4help · January 10, 2021, 8:10pm

William: I have modified my file to the point that it is acceptable as an experiment that I’d be willing to run, with one exception, the amount of time. I have attached that file and am wondering if you’d take a look at it and tell me if it might be possible to cut down that run time.

HOME MADE STAR.c2d (253.7 KB)

WillAdams · January 10, 2021, 9:41pm

Interesting that you were able to get a 3D carving done w/ a V endmill — I suspect that’s part of the problem.

Note sure the preview is what you want:

Let’s consider something a bit different — hang on, gotta do some drawing.

WillAdams · January 10, 2021, 10:37pm

Okay, what should work is a series of overlapping geometries each of which is assigned an advanced V carving:

(we will clean up the overlapping presently)

but unfortunately, the 3D preview is not correct:

WillAdams · January 10, 2021, 11:03pm

Unfortunately, cleaning up the geometry didn’t resolve the overlapping issues:

And a 3rd party previewer seems to indicate that it is caused by the V endmill being represented as a truncated cone — I believe it would cut correctly.