Autocarve 3d - Anybody Using?

[signman315]

Wondering if anyone is using AutoCarve 3d option for Artpath? We have a Sabre 408 and love it, had it 16 years and very little maintenance. Anyway we are looking into true 3d carving options and by the sounds of it Artpath can do this with the purchase of the Autocarve 3d option.

My question is does anybody have some pics/examples of finished signs they made with Autocarve 3d? Or even better yet any videos of the carving in action. I really want to learn more about it's capabilities/limitations so I can decide if it's worth buying or not.

Just to be clear I'm not looking for V carved or Prismatic (aka 2.5d carving) we have that capability now, I'm interested in true 3d. Thanks for your help!

 

[printhog]

You need to check the firmware on your Sabre with Gerber to see if it's compatible.. older models had 4mb RAM, to run auto carve you need 16mb RAM. I was told that my Sabre would need a new main board upgrade to handle the larger files carving uses. Which sucks because the old auto carve in Graphix advantage software on a win 98 box was capable of doing the prismatic work.

For real carving I don't think Gerber is what you want. It's primarily for 2.5D, prismatic work basically.

SAI has En Route 6.0 out now on a subscription deal. $7000 software for $99/mo. Membership. Fully functional. Drives Sabre thru a spool to avoid over loading the older serial buffers.. lots of support literature. My Gerber dealer sells it and has multiple installed sites with 408s. Having used the front end it's very intuitive, and highly complex for 3D, including unwrapping 3D shapes to make molds, real 3D meshes, import filters from all CAD formats. Very fast tool paths, all in all really good.
If the Gerber dealer says it's the program of choice vs Gerber.. of likely go with that.

its only a freaking sign!

 

[signman315]

Thanks Printhog, I've been thinking EnRoute was going to be the way to go. Didn't know about the subscription option, that sounds enticing if they don't force you into a long term contract. I'll certainly look into it, thanks for your insight.