Hi Art,

I understand what you say and the effect is demonstrated in the background of this image http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=12444.0;attach=23043;image . The background gradient contains more shades than the 8 available from the plugin so it is split into the nearest match and thus the bands which only affect the background and not the foreground.

What I am trying to resolve is, I think, different and can best be seen in this image http://www.cooperman.talktalk.net/files/27_files/image762.jpg which is purely monochrome with no shades of gray.
I can produce a number of identical images, one at a time, side by side on the same material and with exactly the same settings yet the banding pattern, across the whole image, is different between each image.

Grateful of any additional thoughts you may have on this one.

Tweakie.

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
 

   

Hi.
Hier ist dot marking machines + accesories   http://www.directindustry.com/industrial-manufacturer/dot-peen-marking-machine-81035.html

Nice  work in any language.

Where did you find / buy your Engraving electromagnetic head?

Hallo.
Here's my model look like generate photo in stone mechanical style.
To dress is Russian mode of production.
Equipment isn't my and isn't controlled from MACH3.
Head is electromagnet.

Art,

Thank you for the information. I must admit to not fully understanding how the dots are generated but perhaps it will become clearer after more thought. One thing that I had not considered is that the banding is created from the X step info - I had, mistakenly, thought that if it was software related it would have been related to the Y axis stepover.

You have given me an avenue to investigate regarding care in the initial image sizing and pixel count rather than just taking an image and scaling to fit at the last moment.

I will experiment with the grayscale issue a bit more but so far I have only been able to resolve, at any one time, 5 shades out of a possible 8. So I need to discover just why I am getting such a large step size so that I cannot see more than 8 shades. http://www.cooperman.talktalk.net/grayscale1.bmp

There has to be a solution to this "banding" and I just hope that I find it sooner rather than later. 

Tweakie.

I d/led the impact solenoid plugin from the web site and installed it. I could not get any output from pin 8 with the config output set for digit titg enable port 1 and pin 8 as output pin. I then copied the eengraving .dll ver 1.1 from your post to the plugionn directory. I still did not get any output from pin 8. So i hooked up my scope and sure enough there was no signal on pin8. So I changed the digit trig to pin 6 and reran the engrave ver 1.1 with still no output shown on the scope. I know my PP is fine.
Any ideas why I am not getting any output. using the plugin?
Dioes the plugin in the downloard section have the ver 1.1 dll? added?


Art

[/quote]

Dan:

  Must be a simplt config thing, I cant think of anythign to stop it. I take it everythign else seems to work fine in terms of starting the plugin up?

The X and the Y axis move fine . But I am geettting no signal on pin 8 with the Digit trig set to port 1 pin 8

Hi Dan:

  Not sure what could stop it.. hmm. Make sure no other signal is set to that pin, that could kill it..
I cant think of the top of head anythign else that woudl stop it, must work I see too many examples..

Art

Hallo Dan.
you have to activate :