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Already have an account? Click Here to Sign In and Download. Download as Guest. Our Aspire free trial has been designed to allow you to test all the elements of the software to ensure it is the right product for you before you buy. The trial software is not time limited, nor does it require you to sign up with your personal details. All of the features are enabled and there are a selection of free projects available for you to download and cut on your CNC machine to check the compatibility.

The Holiday Snowman Dish is a fun and functional item for the festive season! This quick and easy project is great for holding candies, nuts or other holiday goodies. The Vintage Parlor Box is a handy stowaway for any items you like! The parlor in Victorian homes often had a chest or box that held treasured objects.

This project features fancy relief carvings evocative of that era. The sample is finished in a dark stain with flat clearcoats to yield a well-used and aged appearance. Separate files for most 2- sided projects are no longer required! The International Cheese Board project features a handy integrated cracker holder for square, rectangle or round crackers - perfect for parties and get-togethers. Available for Aspire 8. Cool and quirky, this is one wall clock that absolutely wants to solicit a few smiles!

All 3D components were created with the Vectric Aspire software. Software features that came in particularly handy while creating this project included Create Shape From Vector, Two-Rail Sweep, Copy object along vectors, the Drawing and Node editing tools, Smoothing, and Add draft to model. The Chubby Box features precision pockets to fit lengths of dowels that form the convex sides of the box.

The files were created with the Vectic VCarve Pro software which made laying out a project like this very easy to do. This fun project is intended to inspire you to make a face! A Tree Face, that is. The included project files have eyes, nose and a mustached mouth ready to carve, as well as a couple customizable files to get you started. The Spring Blossom Wreath project will proclaim glad tidings of Spring and the warmer weather it brings!

The wreath features Zinnias, Pansies, Petunias and various leaves arranged together around the ring. The result is a distinguishedv-carved Mantle Clock that you can use yourself or give to someone as a special gift! Ready to store all your neat stocking fillers you get for Christmas, Michael Tyler has created an iconic 'Man-Box'. This project features a dress shirt and tie!

Pulling on the shirt collar allows the lid to slide open and give access to the contents of the box spare keys, change, watches, cufflinks, etc. The Merry Christmas Sled project makes a delightful accent to your festive holiday decor! This project features four padlock models finished to look like aged metal, then incorporated with a wooden plaque as a truly unique and convenient wall mounted key hanger for you to enjoy!

The padlocks were created in Aspire using reference photos of actual antique padlocks as guides during the modeling process. This Rustic Welcome Door Plaque will add homespun charm to the entrance for your house or holiday cottage!

A simple silhouette of a cabin and the vertical welcome board will help to greet vistors and make them feel at home. The heavily-grained texture is entirely vector-based. Two groups of vectors were profiled-on with a v-bit. Each vector group was set at different depths to yield the rough and weathered appearance.

Very effective and quicker to machine than a 3D texture. This elegant and fun novelty clock is based upon the antique Model 50AL candlestick phone introduced in - the first free-standing tabletop dial telephone. Thus, began the era of rotary dial telephone sets which would span most of the 20th century Michael's project features segmented construction for the handset and mouthpiece assemblies.

The finished dimensions of this project are approximately 5. The Pineapple Fruit Server is an easy project you can cut in less than an hour and finish over a weekend. The pineapple shape is an iconic symbol of warmth, welcome, friendship and hospitality.

The server makes a very nice addition to your family and friend gatherings! The finished dimensions of this project are approximately 8. The best part is, anyone can do it! The project uses the new Moulding Toolpath feature released to the public with Aspire and VCarve version 8. This introduces an easy and efficient method to create nicely profiled mouldings of all kinds.. The "Boat Hull Nautical Shelf" is an attractive way to display small treasures for your home or office.

The edge trim and inside back panel were left a natural light color. The instructions included with the file, outline the specific method to acomplish this. This deep sea inspired soap dish is an easy to make project, carved and cut from 1" x 6" PVC trim board material found at any home center store. The sample imitates a thick-cast bronze metal block with a shallow shell motif dish and a seahorse ornament complimenting the oceanic theme.

It is coated with thick bodied metallic paints and a patina applied to yield an aged appearance. Here is a handy set of three heat-resistant table or countertop trivets representing three of the carnivorous food groups - Beef, Fish and Poultry!

The samples were finished with heat resistant paints in contrasting colors silver and black but you could opt to forego the two-tone and just use one color paint instead. The project files are intentionally kept separate, but you can create your own multiple layout for creating as many trivets per board, as you wish.

The Aspire project is similar to the original in several ways, but redesigned to be a bit smaller. The back has two keyhole slots that provide a convenient method to securely hang the shelf unit on your wall. For this month's project Michael Tyler has created an easy to make Spoon Rest project with a twist. This Vectric version features a hinged frame that swings up and over the bowl area to provide a built-in spoon handle support! Swing back over for compact storage. The slight angle of the handle support will help to keep drips from your spoons where they belong, in the spoon rest and off your counter top.

This project creates a rustic looking cover for standard size cube-style tissue box. Textures were made by creating thin overlay components from photos of actual branches and then combined with components made from Texture Toolpath previews.

It is important to understand the limitations of this option. It can be substantially slower. Creating robust boundaries for each part can consume a lot of processing power. Any feature which shares an edge with the boundary will be deleted. If the tabs on the top of this part were to have been machined 'thinner', this approach would not have been suitable as the bottom edge of the tabs has been removed.

The new features will help a lot of SketchUp users dramatically reduce the time it takes to go from a SketchUp design to a machinable part using Aspire. It is important to understand though that while these options provide a useful set of tools, in many cases there will still be additional editing required to ensure the part is ready to toolpath. Understanding the options and how they work will allow the part to be designed in SketchUp with these in mind and therefore help to minimize the time to machine once the data is imported.

The 3D file must first be scaled to the required size before toolpaths are calculated, and then the complete file saved ready for importing into Aspire. These files can only be moved and positioned inside Aspire but cannot be scaled.

The associated toolpath s are also drawn in the 3D window and the names appear in the Toolpath list. Toolpaths for the example above have been calculated with the X0 Y0 in the middle of the 3D design. When imported into Cut2D the data is automatically positioned using the same coordinates, which places three quarters of the design off the job. In the second image the grayscale image has been moved to the middle of the job. The thumbnail preview is also copied for each toolpath, making it very easy to position additional copies of a 3D toolpath.

For example, a single design can be copied and mirrored to create Left and Right versions of a 3D design or to place multiple copies of a decorative design in the corners of a cabinet door panel as shown below. Toolpaths for the 3D elements can be previewed along with the conventional Profile, Pocketing and Drilling toolpaths, and everything will be saved ready for machining.

A good example of where this functionality might be used in conjunction with PhotoVCarve is for making personalized picture frames that include the PhotoVCarve grooves plus descriptive engraved text and a decorative Profiled or Beveled border. As shown below:. Imported toolpaths can also be edited to position them inside the material or to change the cutting parameters - speeds and feed rates can be changed.

Selecting Export All will export all of the vectors contained on the specified sheets and layers. Selecting Export Selected Only will export only the vectors which are currently selected and on the specified sheets and layers.

The sheets you wish to be exported to PDF can be selected from within this section. Clicking Clear All will deselect all of the sheets and clicking Select All will cause all of the sheets to become selected. The layers you wish to be exported to PDF can be selected from within this section. All the visible layers with content on them will show up in this list. When All visible layers is chosen all of the vector layers will be selected. Only vectors on the layers selected will be exported into the PDF file.

Export Job Bounds - If this option is selected a vector representing the boundary of the job will also be output to the PDF file. Clicking Export will prompt you to choose a filename and location for your file and save your drawing in PDF format at that location.

The Cut tool removes the selected objects from a design in a similar way to pressing the Delete key, but the selected objects are copied to the clipboard and can be Pasted into either the current file or a new file if required. Only one item can be Cut or Copied at a time.

The Copy tool copies selected objects to the clipboard, leaving the original in place and allows duplicates to be made and re-used in the design by pressing the Paste icon.

This Paste option places the contents of the clipboard created by Cut or Copy into the design, allowing elements to be re-used in different areas of a design or in other Aspire parts. Clicking this option steps forward through design steps that have been Undone using the Undo command see above to get back to stage that the user started using the Undo function.

The Job Setup form is displayed whenever a new job is being created, or when the size and position of an existing job is edited. Single Sided job type should be used when design only requires the material to be cut from one side. This is the simplest type of job to design and machine. For more information about Rotary job type see Job Setup - Rotary. This section of the form defines the dimensions of the material block you will be using for your project in terms of width along the X axis , height along the Y axis and thickness along the Z axis.

This datum can be set at any corner, or the middle of the job. This represents the location, relative to your design, that will match the machine tool when it is positioned at X0, Y0. While this form is open, a red square is drawn in the 2d view to highlight the datum's position. When editing the Job Size parameters of an existing job, this option determines whether any drawings you have already created will be scaled proportionally to match the new job dimensions.

If you wish to preserve the existing size of your drawings, even after the job size has changed, leave this option unchecked. With this option checked, your drawings will be re-sized to remain in the same proportion and relative position within your new material extents when you click OK. When working with 3D models a lot of calculation and memory may be required for certain operations.

Setting the Resolution allows you to choose the best balance of quality and speed for the part you are working on. The better the resolution quality chosen, the slower the computer will perform.

As this is completely dependent on the particular part you are working on and your computer hardware performance, it is difficult in a document like this to recommend what the setting should be. Generally speaking, the Standard fastest setting will be acceptable for the majority of parts that Aspire users make. If the part you are making is going to be relatively large over 18 inches but still has small details, you may want to choose a higher Resolution such as High 3 x slower and for very large parts over 48 inches with small details then the Highest 7 x slower setting may be appropriate.

The reason that the detail of your part needs to be taken into account is that if you were making a part with one large item in it e. As the Resolution is applied across your whole work area it is important to set the size of your part to just be big enough to contain the part you plan to carve.

It would not be advisable to set your material to be the size of your machine - e. This sets the color or material effect which will be applied to the base 3D model. It is possible to change this at any time and also to apply different colors and materials to different Components using the Component manager. In most cases a new job represents the size of the material the job will be machined into or at least an area of a larger piece of material which will contain the part which is going to be cut.

Clicking OK creates a new empty job, which is drawn as a gray rectangle in the 2D View. Dotted horizontal and vertical Grey lines are drawn in the 2D design window to show where the X0 and Y0 point is positioned. Double Sided job type is useful when it is desired to cut both sides of your material. Aspire allows you to visualise and manage the creation and cutting process of both sides of your design within a single project file.

Zero off same side This option allows Z Zero to reference the same physical location , regardless whether material is flipped or not. This section gives choice between horizontal and vertical flipping when changing machining side. Aspire uses that information to correctly manage the alignment of the geometry relating to each side.

Rotary job type enables the use of a rotary axis also called a 4 th axis or indexer. Aspire will provide alternative visualisation, simulation and tools appropriate for rotary designs. For the best accuracy using Cylinder Axis option is recommended. This datum can be set at any corner, or the middle of the job, when viewed as a flat 2d drawing.

This option selects along which axis the material block will rotate. Selecting Along X Axis means that X coordinates represent movement along the cylinder, whereas Y coordinates represent the angle around the cylinder.

Selecting Along Y Axis means that Y coordinates represent movement along the cylinder, whereas X coordinates represent the angle around the cylinder. Each tool gives you the option of dynamically drawing with the mouse in the 2D View, or entering precise data using the form. When you click on a shape tool icon its associated form will open on the Drawing tab. Here you can see the precise dimensions of the shape you are working on, which you can edit directly, as well as other options specific to the type of shape you are editing.

If you click on a shape drawing tool when nothing is selected in the 2D View, you will be able to create new shapes using the Create button.

If you select a previously created shape, you will be able to modify its properties using the same form and update the shape using the Apply button. There are a number of tools dedicated to the creation and editing of text.

These can be found on the Drawing tab, below the shape creation tools. Aspire can make use of any TrueType font already installed on your computer, as well as Vectric's own single-line fonts designed specifically for CNC machining. The Text selection tool then allows you to dynamically alter the text positioning, spacing or even to bend your text into an arc.

For even more flexibility, use the Text on Curve tool to place your text along any vector curve or line that you have drawn. The Convert Text to Curves tool allows you to then use Node Editing to fine tune the vectors of the text to any shape required. Trace Bitmap tool allows you to automatically trace imported bitmaps using a variety of options within the tool to control the vectors that are created.

The dimensions tool allows you to add a variety of dimensioning annotations to your vector drawing. As the cursor is dragged across the screen the radius is dynamically updated. The increments will depend upon your snap radius and the job size. The radius or diameter can be specified while dragging out a circle: Type the value while dragging followed, by D if it's a diameter, or R if it's a radius: Keys Result 1 2 R Radius 12 2 R Radius 2 1 D Diameter 1.

Circles can also be drawn by entering the required XY origin, selecting either Radius or Diameter and entering the required size on the form. The selected circle is displayed as a dotted magenta line. Edit the Center Point and Radius or Diameter. To modify another circle without closing the form hold a Shift key down and select the next circle. Instead of releasing the left mouse button when you have dragged your shape to the required size, you can also type exact values during the dragging process and set properties precisely.

Left-click and drag out your shape in the 2D View. With the left mouse button still pressed, enter a quick key sequence detailed below. Release the left mouse button. By default, two values separated by a comma, will be used to set width and height of your ellipse. One value will create a circle with the given diameter. While you are dragging out the ellipse, type Width Value , Height Value Enter or Diameter , Enter to create an ellipse with the specified dimensions.

By using specific letter keys after your value, you can also indicate precisely which property it relates to. Accurate ellipses can also be drawn by entering the required XY origin point with the Width and Height of the oval. Click Apply to create the ellipse. To modify another ellipse without closing the form hold a Shift key down and select the next ellipse. The Draw Rectangle Tool allows rectangles to be created interactively with the cursor and Quick Keys or by entering the exact coordinates, type of corners square, internal or external radius and Width and Height using typed input.

As the cursor is dragged across the screen so the XY size is dynamically updated. By default, two values separated by a comma, will be used to set width and height of your rectangle. One value will create a square with that side length. While you are dragging out the rectangle corner, type Width Value , Height Value Enter or Side Length , Enter to create a rectangle with the specified width and height.

Rectangles can also be drawn by entering the required XY origin point with the Width and Height of the rectangle. To modify another rectangle without closing the form hold a Shift key down and select the next rectangle. If you hold a Shift key down and select an object that isn't a rectangle so if you click text or a polyline, for example a Rectangle will be created as a bounding box of the clicked object:.

Polygons e. Triangles, Pentagons, Hexagons etc. As the cursor is dragged across the screen so the radius is dynamically updated. By default, entering a single values will be used to set the radius of your polygon. While you are dragging out the polygon, type Radius Value Enter to create a polygon with the precisely specified radius.

Polygons can also be drawn by entering the required XY origin , selecting either Radius or Diameter and entering the required size. Click Apply to update the circle. To modify another polygon without closing the form hold the Shift key down and select the next polygon. Stars can be created interactively with the cursor and Quick Keys, or by entering the number of points, exact coordinates and outer radius and inner radius percentage using typed input.

The quickest and easiest way to create a star is by clicking and dragging the shape to size in the 2D View using the mouse. As the cursor is dragged across the screen so the outer radius is dynamically updated. By default, entering a single value will be used to set the outer radius of your star. While you are dragging out the star, type Radius Value Enter to create a star with the precisely specified outer radius.

To modify another star without closing the form hold a Shift key down and select the next star. This tool creates continuous straight lines through points clicked, entered coordinates, tangent between a point and an arc or tangent to two arcs.

The polyline tool can also be used create lines that are tangent to arcs in your existing drawing. To create a line tangent from a point to an arc simply enter the initial point and then hover the cursor over the arc and press T.

To create a line tangent from an arc to a point click on the arc to insert a point and then hover the cursor over the next point position and press T.

To create a line tangent from one arc to another click on the arc to insert a point and then hover the cursor over the second arc and press T. An existing open contour can be extended by holding down the Ctrl key and then clicking on either its start or end point. By default, entering a single value will be used to add a point at the specified distance along the line direction currently indicated by the mouse pointer position, relative to the preceding point.

With polyline drawing underway, move the mouse pointer in the direction you wish to create a new line segment and type Length Value Enter to extend the line by the specified distance in that direction. By default two values, separated by a comma, will create the next line point at the absolute X Y coordinate indicated by the two values, respectively. By using specific letter keys after your values, you can also specify the line segment in terms of angle and length.

You can also use the form to enter values for each line segment as you go along. The segments can be defined using:. The Create Arc tool allows a single arc span to be created using precise values, or dynamically within the 2D View. Precise values for the start and end point positions in absolute X Y coordinates and either the radius or the height of the arc can be entered in the form directly.

Click Create to draw and arc using these values. The properties of an arc can be edited at any time by selecting the arc before choosing the Create Arc tool. This opens the form with the current properties and position of the selected arc and these values can then be edited.

Repeating texture patterns can be created using the Create Vector Texture tool. These vectors can be machined in a variety of ways to create attractive textures. To use the tool click the icon on the drawing tab. If required, select any contours that you wish the pattern to be created within. By using the sliders and edit boxes on the form the style of the created pattern can be varied.

Click Preview to see a preview your created texture as you adjust the form's parameters. When you are happy with the preview, click OK to create the pattern. The lines in the texture are created at an angle. This value can be set to any value between degrees and 90 degree. The line spacing controls the distance between the contours created by the tool. Use the edit box labeled Max. Spacing to enter a maximum value of line spacing.

The slider underneath the edit box controls the degree of variation in the line spacing. If the slider is to the far left then this mean variation is at a minimum and so the lines are evenly spaced. If the slider is to the far right the variation is highest and so the distance between created contours varies between zero and the maximum spacing specified.

Within this section of the form the created pattern can be made to behave in a wave-like fashion. This wave is controlled by two parameters: the amplitude and wavelength. The wavelength describes the length over which the contours shape repeats itself.

A bigger wavelength gives a long wave while a small wavelength gives a short wave. The amplitude describes the height of the wave. Larger amplitude means a taller wave and smaller amplitude means a shallow wave. The noise slider controls the degree of randomness applied to the above values and can be used to create less regular patterns. The vectors created by this function have many applications but a key one is to combine them with either a Profile Toolpath or where available the Texture Toolpath to create decorative panels and background textures, a small selection of the possible results you can derive from this combination are shown in the images below.

Text is edited in-place including Arc Text and Text on a Curve, even if it has been moved, scaled and rotated. If the form is opened with no selection, the new text is placed somewhere on the material if possible between the center of the material and the center of the view to help keep it visible. An empty box is drawn in the view which helps visualize the currently specified text height and anchor point. Existing text has guide lines showing the height of the top line of text.

Some fonts will descend below the lower line like handwriting on a note pad. Clicking selected text while editing, changes the anchor point to a box which can be dragged and dropped with snap. The view is updated shortly after the user stops changing the form properties e. Custom kerning and spacing adjusted using the Kerning and Spacing tool is maintained through the edit where possible.

Fonts that start with the character are drawn vertically downwards and are always left justified. The Single Line Radio Button changes the Fonts list to show a selection of fonts that are very quick to engrave.

The Larger Edit Clicking OK accepts any text entered into the window and Cancel will throw away any changes. Positions text relative to the full body of text, this only has a noticeable effect when writing multiple lines of text. Sets the position of your text block. Either enter values directly and click Apply , or click in the 2D View with the mouse cursor to set the position values interactively. Clicking in the 2D View will begin a new block of text, set to the new Anchor point.

To edit text properties or content of previously created text: If the Create Text form is open, hold the Shift key down and click the text you wish to edit or If the Create Text form is closed, click the left mouse button on the text in the 2D View to select it before opening this form.

The form will now allow you to edit the properties of the selected text. Click the Apply button to update the changes in the 2D View. Click the Cancel button to finish or cancel the editing and close the form. This option automatically sizes a block of text to fit inside the bounding box width and height limits of a selected vector. If no vector is selected the text is scaled to fit the size of the material.

When the Text form is open, the Dimensions for the Width and Height of the selected vectors or job dimensions are shown, and these are used to constrain the font size of the text.

This example shows text in an Engraving Font drawn in an ellipse. The bounding box of the ellipse is used for the layout:. Positions text relative to the selected bounding box or material size with options for left, center and right aligned. These are the actual size of the box into which the text will be fitted. If the text is scaled interactively by left clicking twice on the text or precisely using the scale tool, the new bounding box is updated and displayed as a light gray rectangle.

When the text fits the width of the box and there is space above and below it, the text can be made to fill that vertical space using one these methods:. When the text fits the height of the box and there is space at the sides, the text can be made to fill that horizontal space using one these methods:.

Select the cursor and click to select the Text to be edited. The text will be displayed as magenta lines with 2 Green handles in the middle for dragging the text into arc-text :. The interactive letter kerning allows default text to be modified so that adjacent pairs of letters sit more naturally together. A typical example is shown above where the capital letters W A V are placed next to each other and the default space is excessive. Holding Shift and Ctrl keys together and clicking the Left mouse button moves the letters closer together in larger increments.

Line spacing can be modified by placing the Edit Text cursor between lines. It will change to the line spacing cursor:. Holding the Shift and Ctrl keys together and clicking the Left mouse button moves the lines apart in larger increments.

The interactive rotation and movement cursor is displayed when the cursor is placed over either of the Green Handles to indicate that the text can be arced either Upwards or Downwards:. After arcing text, additional Red and Blue handles are displayed for Rotating and Moving the text. This allows the text to be positioned exactly on the horizontal or vertical quadrants, even after it may have been moved slightly. There are two handles for moving the text, one in the middle of the text, and one in the center of the arc, though that may be off-screen for very shallow arcs:.

Some fonts do occasionally include loops and problems that need fixing using the Node Editing tools before it can be utilized for other functions. This text first has to be converted to Curves, creating lines, arcs and Bezier spans that can be interactively edited to fix the problem areas.

Script style fonts that are based on overlapping characters can be VCarved or Engraved without having to first convert the characters to curves. If the individual characters contain overlapping vectors or loops these will need fixing manually using the Node editing tools.

When Profile Machining with Tabs is required the text must first be converted to curves. Opening the Tab form on the Profile machining form will show a message stating that the text must first be converted to curves and clicking the Yes button will automatically make the conversion.

Text can be converted to curves at any time by selecting the icon or clicking the Right mouse button and selecting Convert Text to Curves. It will take the text and fit it onto the selected vector to follow the curvature. Options within the tool allow position, space and location against the line to be edited. The Create Text Form can be used to edit the text on the curve even if the curve has been deleted.

The slider can be used to increase or decrease the word and character spacing. This video shows how to take a set of text and use the distortion tools to match the curve of pages in a 3D clipart model of a book. VCarve and Profile toolpaths are then calculated and projected onto the surface of the Component.

The first video is a detailed look at different way to use the Two Rail Sweep tool. The second shows how to create plane components to prevent the toolpath cutting down vertical edges. Then 2D toolpaths are calculated for the flat areas and combined with 3D toolpaths for the shaped parts. Demonstration of the process of tiling a set of 3D toolpaths that are larger than the available material or machine bed. This divides the toolpaths into sections.

This focuses on the technique of drawing a piece of material through a gantry style router to cut a part that is longer than your machine's bed.

A demonstration of the technique for isolating and efficiently machining only the areas of a model that have not been reached by previous toolpaths.

In-depth guide to important 3D modeling concepts in Aspire to help improve your ability to model more complex parts.