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Here is a question I got in an email. I thought it would be relevant for all.

Email:
It is not very user friendly and I was wondering if you have had any experience with BobCad? I also purchased BobArt but that limits the depths you can do when importing a picture to route. Any suggestions or help will be greatly appreciated.

Response:

BobCAD and BobART
I actually don't have much experience with these, but I have it on the schedule to buy and produce some videos with them. Too bad it won't be till late summer or early fall. Up front I picked Rhino 3D and RhinoART. Sounds like we picked exactly opposite.

I have had great luck modeling signs(Text,Images) just in Rhino 3D. Like anything though, it has a learning curve. I have heard that detail with BobART is not that great or could be better. I have found something similar with RhinoArt. Talking with others, it seems to be better then BobART for detail, ease of use.

Maybe some others can chime in if they have used both and can make a good comparison.

Have a good one,
Ivan

I use BobCAD-CAM at home and at work. The work version has BobART but I haven't found a need for it yet. It doesn't seem to be very interpretive when going from a raster to a vector drawing. A lot of cleanup work is needed. That's just me looking over the shoulder of someone else doing that kind of work on it.

I mainly use BobCAD for 2-D work and plotting arcs to turn on CNC machines.

In the past when I was running the waterjet and laser, I used BobCAD daily to draw up and code 2-D parts. Now, I'm in the CNC shop and use it mainly at home for personal projects.

Here is a 2-D part I made using BobCAD. I took a bitmap image and pasted it in BobCAD, then plotted points throughout the image and just connected the dots and smoothed the straight lines into arcs. It took some time and patience. This was cut out on the laser in 1/32 stainless steel and decorated with black and red costume jewels. It's a school's mascot. Westmore Jaguars.

The image I started with...


Vector image for cutting out on the laser...