Isn’t that just a function of the “height” parameter when you import the .stl?
His model is 3x3", so it looks like he imported at a height of ~2.5" ??
Did some testing making the bottoms to some catch all gift boxes. They came out pretty good, at least good enough for gifts. I definitely want to figure out how to get better floor and wall finishes as cut paths are visible both before and after sanding and applying finish.
Before sanding and finish
After sanding and finish
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As Tod said, you can tweak the elevation adjusting the “Height” field after importing a depth map PNG (and maybe an STL too though that wasn’t my workflow). My topo was cropped close enough to the peak that I really could accentuate the height. To approximate reality I simply adjusted the height until it looked like a picture of Mount Hood.
For the record I did use Carbide Create Pro for this project.
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Built a table and added an 800W air cooled spindle to my pro. Wanted to play around with v carving and ended up cutting out this sugar skull…
Need to clean it up a bit but I’m pretty happy with how my first V carve turned out! The spindle worked great too. Super quiet and loved having it turn off and on for me and being able to set different rpms for different tools.
I used a 90 degree v bit. I have a 30 degree v bit that should arrive tomorrow so hoping I can cut deeper for fine features. If I were to make the same sugar skull I’d probably also add a roundover and use a thinner piece of stock, but I was lazy, learning a new program, and just wanted to use some scrap I happened to have.
Next time I might try spray painting it or doing an epoxy inlay
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Where did you all find the .stl file? Did you generate your own from contour data? My SO climbed Mt Hood and I would like to make a topo for her, but am having trouble finding a good 3D model.
https://touchterrain.geol.iastate.edu/ is a great place to do this
(some notes I took on how to use it are at The three volcanoes of N Oregon and S Washington - #4 by fenrus)
Made myself some new long L brackets. I had the central space left over so I drew up some cam clamps. This piece of cherry was laying around the shop for 2 years. I finally found a use for it. On my cam clamps as well as the hold downs for the L brackets I have made them from various thickness material in the past. What I always do is the .75" recess hole for a washer is always .5" above the spoilboard so I can use the same length bolts to hold down things on all clamps and L brackets.
On my new Long L brackets I have been using the 6" one pictured in the corner for a long time. However most of my projects tend to go across the spoilboard and you can make the material skew off square if not careful. So by having the longer L bracket I can secure across from t he L bracket and get a square material more easily.
I got these cut out tonight and tomorrow I will remove the tabs and get them in place and ready to use. I made the handles for the clamps a little long. If they turn out to be too long I will just trim them down. I like the thought of the extra leverage to tighten them but along the edge of the spoilboard they could interfere with the gantry side plates. Plus I have a lot of other cam clamps that have shorter arms I could use in place of these. For those with keen eye you will notice that the cam clamps face opposite ways. The reason for this for the bottom of the material the tightening of the bolt actually help keep the cam clamp tight. Then for the opposite side of the material the same thing. If all the cam clamps were the same direction on the top of the material the tightening of the bolt can cause the cam clamp to loosen slightly. So having the rotation of the cam clamp coincide with the tightening of the hold down bolt helps keep them tight and maybe even a little bit tighter because I have the rotation reinforcing the tightening.
I will remove them from the board and tidy up the tabs tomorrow on the sander.
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I used TouchTerrain that Arjun references above. It was an STL Binary which when imported in CC Pro appears as a depth map image. The only “trick” to the process is integral to CC Pro’s logic of “Components”.
To your stock, you have to subtract a negative of the STL.
First you Add Shape component to represent your stock.
Second you Import STL file and do the following:
- Adjust XY Scale and Height for accuracy
- with Invert checked and Merge Type: Subtract selected
- and Apply the settings and Show 3D to assess
- then iterate till you get the rendering you want.
When you see what you want then click Done.
Subtracting a negative is not an intuitive selection.
The logic isn’t obvious till you grok CC Pro’s modeling.
Hopefully this demystifies it a bit. Travis
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Did my first inlay last week. My wife works at the library and this is the logo.
Main board is cherry, the inlay portion is Sapele.
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That’s pretty awesome work! Quick question where did you get the t-track stops? Been looking for some of those – the ones from Rockler won’t work with the Shapeoko tracks.
they’re from carbide3d…
they are awesome for holding any kind of metal. for wood they’re overkill (they have a set of basic ones which are plastic and for wood that’s usually more than plenty)
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In progress but this was a big item. I for see lots of cuts like this for those getting the 5 
Chunk of mdf was 66" x 34", two operations, end stops on the left with a mark. first op was Zero back left, second was rezerod to the same mark but with a front left zero this time.
paint is drying, but its for a new wall sign. will assemble later today
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Uh, did you proofread? 
Hey, that looks good!
I cut those out of 3/4" oak,
glued 5 of them together, spent way too much time sanding,
carved recesses in the back for hidden supports,
and finally crossed ONE item off the honey do list:
Now, the big question is what to do with all 10 inner parts…maybe 10 charcuterie boards customized with friends and family names to give away for Xmas
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Picture frames?
You could do multiple 4x5, 4x6 (or other standard size photo rectangles) windows, or even one wide window for a panorama photo (because panoramas are somewhat awkward to show).
However, then comes the, ‘well, now I need to buy and cut clear acrylic’, so my suggestion may not be so great after all.
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Keep making smaller versions that nest until you are really, really tired of sanding?
I am about to start on a similar project but shaped like a 32 inch diameter hoop, ~2 inches tall. Is it possible to glue up the uncut pieces first and then cut or would that be a bad idea?
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It happens to be what I pondered while I was sanding (and cursing). Those shelves are 3.5" deep though, it would have taken a reaaaaally long reach endmill to profile cut a stack of glued up pieces. This could go into the guiness book of records for “extreme slotting” I guess 
I was actually cutting almost the exact same design yesterday, except I made a box out of it (because I have a box fetish. Don’t judge)
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I wonder how it would look with some epoxy filled into the surface pattern,