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Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / Re: The Laser Project.
« on: March 13, 2018, 05:28:55 AM »
Hi Spandex,
I think Dan13 has summed it up well.
The first one was created from a ‘dithered’ image (which creates the illusion of shade by varying the density of individual dots) and this is the most common form of laser image reproduction. It is easy to do and it is quick.
Generally a specialist software (such as PhotoGrav) is used to create the 1 bit ‘dithered’ image which is then sized and adjusted to match the d.p.i resolution of the particular laser being used. I used 200 d.p.i. here as it is usual to limit the image resolution to 200 or 300 d.p.i (there is little point in specifying a smaller pixel size than the laser is actually capable of reproducing).
There are a few of us who are interested in producing true 8 bit gray-scale images (as the second picture) but it is not so easy to do as different materials react to the laser in different ways and the production time is much longer.
As he previously mentioned, Art is currently building a galvo scanning system which can work at much higher axis feed-rates than standard linear systems such as mine and I am eagerly awaiting the results of his initial tests before I start on building something similar.
The third image is very much ‘work in progress’ as it is probably the best of the three but it needs far more contrast - who knows, perhaps one day I will succeed.
Tweakie.
I think Dan13 has summed it up well.
The first one was created from a ‘dithered’ image (which creates the illusion of shade by varying the density of individual dots) and this is the most common form of laser image reproduction. It is easy to do and it is quick.
Generally a specialist software (such as PhotoGrav) is used to create the 1 bit ‘dithered’ image which is then sized and adjusted to match the d.p.i resolution of the particular laser being used. I used 200 d.p.i. here as it is usual to limit the image resolution to 200 or 300 d.p.i (there is little point in specifying a smaller pixel size than the laser is actually capable of reproducing).
There are a few of us who are interested in producing true 8 bit gray-scale images (as the second picture) but it is not so easy to do as different materials react to the laser in different ways and the production time is much longer.
As he previously mentioned, Art is currently building a galvo scanning system which can work at much higher axis feed-rates than standard linear systems such as mine and I am eagerly awaiting the results of his initial tests before I start on building something similar.
The third image is very much ‘work in progress’ as it is probably the best of the three but it needs far more contrast - who knows, perhaps one day I will succeed.
Tweakie.
