is there a way to get Tessellated carving only on the bottom layers without it carving into the top layers something like this I've tried  every combination i can think of in pixelcnc the only other way i can think of is doing as i done in the picture using gimp      

Hi oslow1,

You can use the Min Depth parameter to prevent cutpaths from cutting everything above the depth value you set. i.e. for a 0.5" thick canvas if you set Min Depth to 0.25" then cutpaths will be restricted to the bottom half of the canvas volume, like this:

Hope that helps!

 - Charlie