WELCOME!


It is hard to believe that it was only seven years ago I witnessed a CNC router in action for the very first time. I was fascinated and simply had to have one! Although I had been in the creative end of the three dimensional sign business for most of my life I didn't really know what I would do with one - but I just knew it could do fantastic stuff.

Through extensive research I quickly found out that with the relative simplicity of EnRoute, CNC routers were capable of just about anything imaginable. This journal will chronicle that journey to date and continue each week with two or three entries as we continue to explore just what is possible with this wonderful software... -dan

Friday, February 3, 2012

EnRoute 5 - MOST exciting feature so far.

Yesterday I posted about my first impressions of version 5 of EnRoute. I had discovered the warp/distort feature but didn't have much time to play as of yet. But you can bet my mind was racing with all the new possibilities and added power this gave me to design.

In creating the last job we did I had spent the most time creating the waving British flag at the top. Getting everything tweaked perfectly took me quite a while. Each section had to be done separately. 

With the new distort feature in EnRoute 5 this promised to be a whole lot easier. So I opened a flag vector I already had and gave it a whirl.  The flag vector I had was a trace from a bitmap. Not especially accurate but it would do.


I selected the vector I wanted to trace and then clicked on the distort menu. It is found under transform. EnRoute instantly overlays a grid on my vector.


Then I go over the drawing grabbing the various nodes and pulling them to the shape I desired.


WHen I was happy I hit enter and PRESTO!  What had taken me a great deal of time only the day before yesterday was now possible in seconds. How cool is that!


I am really liking version 5 of EnRoute already! Thanks to the folks who worked so hard and long to make it possible!  

I talked with EJ, EnRoute Product Director, yesterday and he says it is on the way very soon!

-dan