Make Big thing - MAS.863

Water jet cut -

For this week's assignment I used the waterjet cutter to make a stencil of a picture I had. This excercise was to test how accurate the waterjet would be if it had to trace a bitmap.

I started with a "silly" picture of myself I had on flickr. The picture was interesting because the clown nose is dividing the face in two sections thus the stencil would have a top and bottom part.

I imported the jpeg into GIMP and started the stencil making. First change the color mode to balck and white. Second play with level intensities (more contrast less brightness). Finally trace the bitmap which in turn give a vectorized version of the picture and save it as a DXF.

Finaly import the vetorized bitmap to the OMAX software (previously cleaning the file a little). Check for proper contour trace (no gaps) and generate the toolpath. Place the sheet of aluminum and bingo! The whole process was 20 mins long!


	I started with a "silly" picture of myself I had on flickr. The picture was interesting because the clown nose is dividing the face in two sections thus the stencil would have a top and bottom part.	I imported the jpeg into GIMP and started the stencil making. First change the color mode to balck and white. Second play with level intensities (more contrast less brightness). Finally trace the bitmap which in turn give a vectorized version of the picture and save it as a DXF.	Finaly import the vetorized bitmap to the OMAX software (previously cleaning the file a little). Check for proper contour trace (no gaps) and generate the toolpath. Place the sheet of aluminum and bingo! The whole process was 20 mins long!