CAM

[werticus]

someone's' asked me to model something for a lathe to make... any ideas on the format? They don't seem to know anything about it. I thought here might be a good place to start but im about to hit google

[RErender]

stl probably, make sure to hit it with the stl check utility to be certain it is waterproof

[tom182]

Well the modelling shouldnt be too hard considering it will be on a lathe in the real world hence use a lathe modifier,
Max is not an option I would use for creating engineering models with, if you have Rhino (possible you can d/l a trial) it would be a breeze, as it intergrates with CAM software. Anyway if u r confined to MAX I think you're only option is a stl format which is biased towards the sterolithographic process, but it still may work.

[mcvltd]

If you're not going to use Rhino then maybe model in Max using nurbs and then export it out as iges. Most CAM apps would prefer to have nurbs than polys I think.