3D laser cutting recognizes all sides of a substrate, allowing for complex shapes and cuts in materials like wood, glass, crystal, and metal. It can cut below the surface without leaving scratches, making it ideal for etching 3D images in crystal and glass.
Three-dimensional (3D) laser cutting is like regular laser cutting, except that the laser can recognize all sides of a substrate, not just the face of the substrate. Unlike two-dimensional (2D) laser cutting, a 3D laser cutter is usually able to work with a large cube or other shape of substrate, not just a flat piece of material. The substrate itself can be of different types of materials, such as glass, crystal, metal and wood. Other cutting methods may only cut the surface of the material, but the laser can be set to cut the inside of the material, which is most commonly used with crystal.
One aspect of 3D laser cutting is that the cutting machine is able to recognize all sides of the substrate. With a 2D laser cutter, the machine is only able to cut and recognize the face of the material. The 3D method allows the cutter to go through and specifically cut and shape the substrate according to the needs of the loaded design, which allows the machine to make much more complex shapes and designs.
Two-dimensional laser cutters can normally only cut in a flat piece of material, but a 3D laser cutter can be done in a thick piece of material such as a cube or sphere. Just like the ability to recognize all sides of the substrate, this allows the machine to make much more complex cuts than a 2D machine. At the same time, there are some cheaper 3D laser cutters that don’t have this capability.
Many different materials can be used with a 3D laser cutting machine and each material has a different purpose. Wood can be formed into pieces for furniture or decorative items, glass and crystal can be formed into shapes, and metal can be formed into parts or printed circuit boards (PCBs). This can usually be done by 2D laser cutters as well, because lasers tend to be versatile cutters.
A unique aspect of 3D laser cutting is the ability to go beyond the surface of the substrate. This allows the cutter to cut below the surface without leaving scratches on the surface of the material. This is usually made from crystal and glass and a 3D image is etched into the center of the material. Wood can also be used for this; it is sometimes made and then the wood is split open to reveal the internal design, but this is not as common as crystal.
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