Photo engraving and 3D relief

Photos on steel, logos from a scan, coin-style reliefs: raster work is where preparation inside the software decides the result on the metal.

From photo to engraving

• Imported images are embedded into the document — no external links to break when the file moves to the operator’s computer.
• Engraving modes: threshold, dithering (Floyd-Steinberg, Jarvis, Stucki, Atkinson, Ordered 4×4/8×8) and grayscale power modulation.
• Brightness, contrast, gamma and inversion — with a live engrave preview on the canvas: marking uses exactly the parameters the preview shows.
• Resolution in DPI, bidirectional scan with offset compensation, cleanup passes and per-pass angle increment.

From scan to vectors

Trace Image turns a raster into vector contours with a live preview, noise filtering and smoothing — a scanned logo becomes editable, hatchable curves you can mark at any size.

3D relief from STL

Orient an STL model in 3D — Zenom bakes a depth map from the chosen view and engraves it layer by layer, intaglio (into the material) or relief (background removed), with per-pass and total depth control.

Honest status

The raster and 3D engraving paths are implemented end to end and work through the emulator and tests; systematic on-machine validation of these scan modes is still in progress.

Good to know

• Raster engraving runs flat: it is not supported on the rotary axis and runs bounded passes only (not in continuous loop mode).
• Fiber laser results depend heavily on the material — use Material Test to sweep power and speed on a sample before the real part (the test-grid tool is still going through final on-machine validation).

See it in detail: Objects, Import and export. Try it on your material — request the 30-day demo.