hi all,

i am looking for an easy way to digitize perimeters from paper templates. perimeter digitizing with probe it does not work, since the paper is too flat.

i thought one solution would be to use an usb camera and manually drive to some of the points of the paper template perimeter and save them in a text file. openening that in rhino and makeing a curve out of these points should work for me, i dont need high accuracy.

does someone now a script that will save the position to a text file? so the workflow would be :
setting zero point x and y
move to a position with jog control
save that point to a the textfile
go to next point
save it

and so on.

if someone has better ideas to solve that problem please let me know.

thanks,
neptunier

Try using "Copycat" in Mach3 wizards, in conjunction with the camera.
I don't know how this will go opening it in Rhino though.
There's a manual for Copycat that Rich wrote in the Members Docs section of the forum.

There are a number of ways to do what you want and then some.

Have a  look at Copycat, there is manual for it in Member's Doc's and it will provide you with gcode file. The code can be backplotted to a dxf drawing if you have a program to do that.
It is used with a usb camera. Know nothing about Rhino so can't help there.

There is another program called Probe It and besides using for the lathe I "think" there is a version of it for the mill.
You must use Mach's original screen set.

Have you considered  just taking a picture and importing into to CAD, scale it based on two dimensions, and just draw over it?
Easy in say AutoCAD, but again know nothing about Rhino.

A spring activated probe can be used on paper. You are just closing the switch so speak. Just something to think about.

I created a screen set for my lathe. I was interested in being able quickly get a profile or  whatever with the option to do it a number of different ways and with different degrees of accuracy.
Selection depends on what you want in the end.
One of the quickest is  to just get a few selected points and have those points drawn in CAD as points, a line,  or an arc. It will not work with "all" CAD programs but works with the two that I use.
So one can put a figure in the  machine, get some points, have it drawn, import the file into a program, output the code, and be ready to duplicate in say 10 minutes.

Just some thoughts on what you want to do.

RICH

thanks, that was what i was looking for.

i jog to the points, and in the editor i edit the textfile that i can import the points as pointcloud into rhino. i switch a "g1 x0 y0 z0" into "0,0,0" and then i have my points. i dont need a gcode output.

doing a photo might be possible too but i guess you have to be centred over the paper template which can be difficult. also i dont know about the lens in the camera whether ist will distort the template.

thanks again,
neptunier