Hey folks,

I'm trying to make crib board from a topograpic mountain relief, but I'm having trouble with the operations for drilling the holes. Here's an example of what I'm trying to cut (a rough illustration, please use your imagination as required):

The obvious choice, the hole drilling operation, seems to be limited to drilling all the holes to a uniform depth. Ideally, I'd like them to follow the height of the terrain- i.e. 0.5" deep, wherever they are. The other options available don't seem to provide a workaround, either. The closest I could find is using the paths-carving with the Follow Canvas option enabled, but that seems to only do a shallow surface engraving. Anybody got any suggestions, or should I make this a feature request? It seems as if my best option at this point is to somehow generate the hole drilling gcode in another app, but I'm actually not all that familiar with working in other CAD/CAM software. 

Thanks!

Hi SpicyFlanx,

Thanks for posting your question! I believe that the Paths Carving operation might be best, and it should allow you to go as deep as you want, you'll just need to create a new copy of your topographical map and lower it by the depth you want the holes to be at and put that in its own Layer Group. Then you use that layer group for your Paths Carving operation. Your paths for milling the holes should accommodate for the cutter's radius as well (i.e. a circle that's 1mm in diameter cut with a 2mm cutter results in a 3mm hole).

We've been looking at things for a proper Hole MIlling operation to do, and following the canvas would be a great option to have. It would be a great option to have for the Hole Drilling operation as well!

Let me know if you have any further questions or need help figuring anything out :]

 - Charlie