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Messages - sshneider

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131
Video P*r*o*b*i*n*g / Re: MachCloud point viewer program
« on: April 15, 2008, 12:27:07 AM »
OK, so scans are starting to come together and I'm getting some pretty good results scanning only in the Y axis.  Now I'm ready to expand my horizons and try some scans using the X axis. 

I already asked Art from some pointers on how to do this on another thread but thought I would continue the conversation here as it's a better place.  I hope you are watching this thread too ART!

After I scan using both Y & X axis I try to view the cloud in Mach Cloud.  When I open up the .txt file Mach Cloud displays a message stating 'Use the Left Right arrows to register, then press Enter to continue.  Then you must click the OK button.  After clicking OK, the first cloud set appears- I press the left/right arrow keys but nothing seems to happen.  I'm not sure if this is a problem with my Computer/Video card or if I am runing the wrong version of Mach Cloud or if I am just doing something wrong.

I usually press the right arrow button about 5 or 6 times then press the enter key.  Then the 2nd scan set appears.  Then the register message again.  I repeat my key tapping routine and the process repeats until all the scan sets appear.

It is INDEED what I scanned over the length of the X axis but the sets overlap each other.  I have this feeling that they are overlapping because I didn't align them correctly.  But, considering that I couldn't see what I was aligning I feel like a blind man who just won the price at the carnival shooting gallery  :D

I also tried to manaully edit the point cloud .txt file and just remove the word 'stripe' whenever it appeared.  I know this is the wrong thing to do but the I wanted to see what results it would yield.  It did seem to remove the overlapping in the X but it added overlapping in the Y.

Maybe it's still too early in the development process of MachCloud to be using this feature but I again feel I am so close I can taste it.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts.

Regards,
Sid

132
Video P*r*o*b*i*n*g / Today's report...
« on: April 15, 2008, 12:10:59 AM »
Hey all,

Didn't have a lot of time today to play but I didn try a couple of different camera positions and laser angles.  So far, I seem to get better results being lower/close to my subject with the camera and the laser raised slightly 4"  above the camera.

Not much else to report on this front but I'm gonna jump over to the MACH CLOUD thread as I have questions that should probably be asked over there to keep things straight!

Sid



133
I had the same problem, still do every once and a while if I chuck a really huge bit and start bouncing the gantrys around a lot.  At first I thought it was my cheapie limit switches-Nope.  Then I tried increasing the DEBOUNCE setting on the general config page to around 2000Ms.  That helped tremendously and except for the big bit thing- problem went away.

Abot a month ago it started again and eventually I ran it down (with the guys from PMDX) to trouble with my breakout board.  Are your runing a PMDX 131?

Try debounce first and see if that helps.

Good luck,
Sid

134
Thanks Chip!  I remember that you told me about that before and I tried it but it didn't work for me.  I think that check box will cause one of the other probe based digitizing plugin/wizard to add the letters when it writes the file.  I'm not a 100% sure on this though.  I am awaiting a touch probe and will check out this feature when it arrives. 

I am pretty excited about my progress since we spoke last week.  Thanks again for your help & advice.

Regards,
Sid

135
Hey Ed,

No Apologies necessary.  I think we are all learning here. 

OK, so the way I understand it- if your machine's native units is set up in inches, then all of the numbers you input should be in inches.  Art's machine is set up in Metric which is why in all of his examples you see mm.  That being said, if your machine is in inches, use inches to calibrate your cube (i.e if your cube is 1 inch, enter 1.00), specify your Y & X Scan distance and the step in inches and if necessary your Ignore Z parameter in inches.

I tried a roll of tape in the beginning as well and didn't get results at first.  Now, I think it was due to other issues but, nevertheless I decided to start with something really simple- my trapazoid wood block.  It worked and now that's going to be my 'lucky block'  ;)

As far as the Z issue is concerned, try and think about what the scanner is doing as the exact opposite of what happens when you cut a part using your machine.  When you cut a part, the computer is reading the G-Code and generating/dispersing commands telling your motors where to go.  The scanning process is just the opposite.  When you scan the computer is COLLECTING axis information via the camera. When the scan takes place the computer is recording data. It records its position in the X, Y but what we are really looking for here is what is happening in the Z.

The Y and/or X positions are specific and predictable (because we told the computer where to move them and how far).  But the Z is where the magic is.  As the laser passes over the object you are scanning the camera sees this object as being higher (i.e. away from the table in an upward direction).  This is the Z value that makes the scan work. 

Example...  If you place you 1 " cube and scanned that whenever the laser is shining on the top of the cube, the computer should register 1.0.  If you told you machine to scan a 1.5" area in the Y axis and a .25" step the point cloud file should look something llike this:
 X        Y      Z
0000  0000  0000  (no cube yet 
0000  0025  1000  (start of cube
0000  0050  1000  (more cube
0000  0075  1000  (more cube
0000  1000  1000  (end of cube
0000  1250  0000  (no more cube
0000  1500  0000  (no more cube


When you at a point cloud file using notepad or wordpad.  You see 3 sets of numbers seperated by a space.  These are you X, Y & Z coordinates.  Theoretically you could add the X, Y & Z before each respective vallue and throw a G1 command at the beginning of the line, you would have a cut/toolpath file.  Of course you would have thousands of points to cut and I think it wouldn't be something that we are all use to in terms of smoothness and speed.

When I looked at your point cloud file and saw that the last set of numbers on every line where all aproximately 0, it showed that you had a scan of a flat piece of something. Try recalibrating your cube using the 1.00 inch value and then rescaning.  I think your getting pretty close to getting some clouds.

I hope that all makes sense- it's hard to explain but you will get the hang of it.

Good Luck,
Sid

 

136
Well,  most of that makes sense.  Some of that Tangental Vector stuff is a little over my head though but, I think I get the Jist of what you are saying- Thank You!

I think that there is some kind of an issue with my machine being set in inches and you doing your stuff in Metric.  Somehow the conversions don't seem right sometimes.  I'm thinking that emulating what you have done has been working for me thus far so I'm about ready to abandon the Inch system and retune my system for metric units and see if that changes anything.

Having had some real breakthroughs in the past couple of days, I want to try and do some bigger things.  That would involve using the X Scan.  Any tips or is there anything I should  about tryijng this?  I know McCloud (wasn't that a 70's TV show?) asks for the left/right arrow thing to register the striping- any tricks to making that work or should I just 'Tinker'?

Thanks a ton for you assistance and input Art- it really has helped me.  I hope I can help others the same way!  Well, except for all of that software coding stuff  ;)

Regards,
Sid

137
Video P*r*o*b*i*n*g / Re: setting up cammera and laser
« on: April 13, 2008, 12:03:10 PM »
Hi Fellas,

I have been watching this thread for a while now but honestly I can only follow along with about 1/2 of what you are talking about.  Obviously you both seem to have about 100X more technical knowledge on this subject but, I thought I would jump in anyway.  Excuse me if I sound like a nitwit but all I have is my experience during the past week of 'playing around'.

I totally agree with you that the sharpness and location of the laser and the quality of the camera play a huge role in the acquisiton of data but using the low end stuff I have been able to generate some really good preliminary results.  The clouds I have been able to generate are so rich with data that one of my problems has been that I acquire TOO much data (points) and this makes thing really hard on the meshing software.  Funny thing is, Art's plug in allows for the user to acquire even more data.  I don't know what one would do with all of these points.

Which leads me to my next question...  What do you guys plan on scanning?  Is it bigger than a 'breadbox'? Or are you guys looking to scan really small stuff like coins?  The reason I ask is because I think that the type of subject matter has a bearing on how you need to  up your camera/laser ( i.e. small stuff = low/close camera laser).  I need to start messing around with this myself.  I have already scanned small things and hopefully will try some bigger stuff this week.

The camera laser are obvioulsy important but so far, I have been able to get good looking clouds.  IMHO the next roadblock is what to do with them after they are clouds.  You will soon see that depending upon what you scan that although you get good clouds they often have holes or other areas that need to be edited.

Mach Cloud is pretty good and you can't beat the price but, due to its 'work in progress' nature and the demands on Art's time I think it will be a while before we see some of the features that I think it needs to be really useful.  So, that put me to RHINO.  That program is cool and does WAAAY more than I think most people need.  Plus it's kinda hard to swallow the $ price tag  when it won't generate useful toolpaths unless you 'pony up' more $ for their plugin.

After you generate meshes, then you need to generate toolpath.  Again, there are not too many software options there.  Meshcam has produced some pretty encourgaing results and I think I'll buy it because I can't find much else but it does crash and 'bog down' depending upon the detail of the mesh fill I 'feed it'.  Depending upon how detailed your mesh is, toolpath generation can consume computer processor time like 'carter's got liver pills'.  If you've been thinking about upgrading your processor and memory- now would be a good time.

There are so many variables to this process that it's hard to focus on just which one will improve the end result.  I'm not really sure that it's all in acquisition.  While that is no doubt important, at this point in my experimentation I would say that it's only about 30% of the whole pie.

Regards,
Sid

138
General Mach Discussion / Re: Is there a simple 3-D program I can use
« on: April 12, 2008, 12:31:23 PM »
What about Cut 3d or Even Better V-Carve?

Sid

139
Slowly getting the hang of things....

Moved the location of the lasr- raised it up higher to get a more defined line.  Changed position of the camera.  Turned off the lights.  Worked with the Ignore setting and things arte starting to come together.

To try and bring things closer to what Art was doing, I tried doing my hand.  It worked pretty well!  One thing I figured out is that once you view the cloud in Mach Cloud, in order to get a good mesh, the 'DECIMINATE" (I just love that word) feature is really helpful.  I found that doing it repeatedly helps to reduce the 'clutter' so to speak.

I have also noticed that Mach Cloud kinda goes funky on me while doing the Ball Pivot mesh thing.  About 40% of the meshes I tried nothing happened.  Or the mesh turned out weird.  I shut down Mcloud and re-launched and sometimes meshes worked again, sometimes they didn't.  So, I just kept shutting it down and relaunching and eventually it works again.

It's kind of irritating because it's not consistent, but on the other hand, it makes me feel like Thomas Edison searching for Tungsten- knowing that when I find it the whole friggin' world is gonna light up!  I guess what I am trying to say is that if things aren't working right, I'm not freaking out.  There is a little 'voodoo' element to all of this right now. But I think I have arrived at the point that I can duplicate results- WHEW!

I will say that after a few bad scans of my hand it took a lot of self control to restrain myself from curling up the 2 fingers on either side of the middle one  :o   

This process really is pretty darn cool!

Regards,
Sid

140
General Mach Discussion / Re: Sure Servo drives with Mach
« on: April 11, 2008, 05:33:02 PM »
Cool- thanks!  I see them now must have been recently posted.

Sid

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