3D Milling Operations

In Voxelizer there are 4 3D milling operations: adaptive, parallel, spiral and radial. Let’s look at them in more detail.

• Adaptive

The adaptive operation will follow the outlines of the model using two types of stepdown: the Maximum roughing stepdown when the tool has room for removing more material and the Fine stepdown when the model requires more precision.

The Undercut, experimental feature, will try to provide sharp angles on convex shapes.

• Parallel

The parallel operation will run the tool over parallel lines following the Pass direction. The distance between each line is specified in the Step over parameter, which is the overlap percentage when milling neighboring paths.

It is also possible to provide Finishing passes when the tool has finished removing all the unnecessary material.  This smoothens the surface of the model.

• Spiral

The  Spiral operation will move the tool in a spiral, but following the outlines of the model when necessary, beginning at the Start depth over the entire area and repeating the process by each max step down until the Final depth is reached. Before applying this operation you need to specify on the model the center point of the spirals by enabling the Choose center point tick (see GIF). If you choose Don’t care as Spiral direction the milling direction of the spiral will alternate between inside and outside, reducing the time of the operation.

• Radial

The Radial operation will drive the tool along the rays of a circle, whose center is specified with the Choose center point tick (as in the Spiral operation) following the profile of the model. Because of this, it is important to specify an appropriate Angular step: the larger the model, the smaller this increase will have to be. If you want to have the tool milling the object in both directions, away from the center and returning (hence saving time), you have to select “both” under Milling direction and “Don’t care” under Radial direction.