Messages

661

Mach SDK plugin questions and answers. / Re: Impact engraving plugin

« on: November 14, 2010, 12:30:16 PM »

Its not really limited to 8 shades of grey. Its a little complex the way it works, but the number of shades of grey is related to the X steps per unit.  Lets say you have 1000 steps per mm and your picture will be  100mm's wide. If the picture also is 100 pixels wide, ( to make it easy), we then have 1000 stepper motor steps per pixel of the image. My point here is we calculate the number of steps per pixel of the final output.

We then load a pixel value from 0 - 255 and calculate that as a number from 0 - 1 and multiply that by the 1000 steps / pixel to come up with an iterator.  We then, for 1 thousand steps , add the iterator to a variable that starts at zero. Each tiime the answer is less than the number of steps per pixel, we set the trigger for that step to zero, if the total is more than the number of steps per pixel, we set the trigger to 1 and subtract the number of steps per pixel from the total. We repeat this until the trigger buffer is full. 

   This means that the number of grey shades is related to the steps/mm and the output width and the picture width. In the end its basically related to the "steps per pixel" of the output. The actual greyscale that results is not limited to 8, but to about 255, and each image has a differing grey scale resolution.

Art
 

   

662

Mach SDK plugin questions and answers. / Re: Impact engraving plugin

« on: November 14, 2010, 08:31:49 AM »

Tweaky:

  Its mathmatical in nature. If a greyscvale varyies subtlely , it can create such bands due to the math of the grey scale interpreter, the imapcts try to fill in a grey scale of the line, so if the next line is only differing in very small ways, the math involeved could simply shift a bit one way, if each line is the same variation, then bands can occur.. not much you can do about it..

Art

663

Mach SDK plugin questions and answers. / Re: Impact engraving plugin

« on: November 11, 2010, 11:55:50 AM »

Henry:
 The plc probably cannot process the 40us pulses ast enough.. though that depends on the plc..some can..

 You simply feed the output to the plc, write a program for it, and see if it can.. I dont think so though..

Art

664

Mach SDK plugin questions and answers. / Re: Impact engraving plugin

« on: November 11, 2010, 10:10:13 AM »

Hi :

  Here is the source for the engraving plugin, and also a new plugin with aspect control and inversion control.

Im afraid I cantg spend any more time on it, Im pretty bogged down, I cant find Blocks code to compare to,
and this is about as far as I can get.

Art

665

LazyTurn / Re: LazyTurn

« on: November 10, 2010, 10:36:09 PM »

Rich:

 Excellent. You know, your just as much to blame for LazyTurn existing as I am.. Ill send you 1/2 of its revenues in perpetuiity..



Art

666

LazyTurn / Re: LazyTurn

« on: November 10, 2010, 09:21:48 PM »

Hi Rich:

  Im not sure the code will convert to arc well, I did try that last year, but it converted very little as very few motions actually represent a true arc..

  I think option 3 woudl be OK, it should be easy for me to put out a no-tool Gcode of the actual profile, though Im still unsure how much use that is..

Ill post it for option 3..

Art

667

LazyTurn / Re: LazyTurn cuts where I don't want it to cut

« on: November 10, 2010, 06:04:56 PM »

lol...

  Just shows to go ya..

Art

668

LazyTurn / Re: LazyTurn cuts where I don't want it to cut

« on: November 10, 2010, 05:20:39 PM »

Yup, I do have confirmation of backlash working in the SS, I too suspect it wont be long before thats relased, I know for a fact it is written and seems to work OK..

Art

669

Mach SDK plugin questions and answers. / Re: Impact engraving plugin

« on: November 09, 2010, 04:08:14 PM »

Andrea:

  Very nice work.

 Ive looked to the code and I thin maybe I see what was wrong. Try this one, I can't guarentee it will be better but Id like
to know if its worse or better..

Art

670

LazyTurn / Re: LazyTurn cuts where I don't want it to cut

« on: November 09, 2010, 11:50:26 AM »

Andy:
  Lazyturn requires all profiles to be closed, so if you didnt draw to zero, it did. I dont think it will do what your attempting.. there is no built in blocking zone or anything, the best you can do is draw the chuck and tell it to start at a safe point. I didnt allow any provision for backlash takup when an obstruction exists..

Art