[Bob La Londe]

Yeah its up again... sorta. Tried to post reply, but I got the spinning wheel of death. PM reply might have gone through, but in case it didn't.

It depends on what you are trying to do.


The trace or outline or whatever it is function from Inkscape is only marginally okay for copying line art.


Sometimes for organic simple-ish shapes I'll photograph it from several angles and then manually trace it in ViaCAD with a combination of lines, arcs, and splines. The spline tool in ViaCAD is (in my opinion) a little better than the one in CamBam. Then I'll set scales (sometimes before) based on physically measuring the object. Then I'll us all those conglomerations (each one restricted to 2 dimensions) to try and create the 3D shape. I see lots of failures.


I recently (several months ago) picked up a 3D laser scanner, but I've been so busy its still in the box.


For mechanical items like 2D templates, adapter plates, and gaskets a light tablet and stylus can do an amazing job. Trace, 3 point interpolate, and locate with the stylus, and the offset of the stylus is known. This would be good for something like a gasket, control panel, etc.

[dh42]

Hello

Yeah its up again... sorta. Tried to post reply, but I got the spinning wheel of death.

Yep, same for me ... and the "support" page on the website return an error.

++
David

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Hello

Yeah its up again... sorta. Tried to post reply, but I got the spinning wheel of death.

Yep, same for me ... and the "support" page on the website return an error.

++
David

[dh42]

I wanted to take advantage of the fact that the forum was back to save the pages containing the C# and VB script programming code snippets, which I often use... but I must have used it a bit too much ! , the forum is out of service again after 15 minutes of use...

I don't understand why my previous message is duplicated

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David

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I wanted to take advantage of the fact that the forum was back to save the pages containing the C# and VB script programming code snippets, which I often use... but I must have used it a bit too much ! , the forum is out of service again after 15 minutes of use...

I don't understand why my previous message is duplicated

++
David

[dh42]

Argh ! ... the CamBam forum is not the only one that goes wrong !! ... here messages are duplicated as if I edit them (but it is not the case !)

[Bob La Londe]

Lloyd, I wanted to add that if you photograph something to import into CAD you usually get a less distorted image if you zoom in from further away rather than photograph from close up.

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Lloyd, I wanted to add that if you photograph something to import into CAD you usually get a less distorted image if you zoom in from further away rather than photograph from close up.

[dh42]

Hello

Forum is back, but still no way to post



++
David

[Bob La Londe]

You can't make a new post or reply to an existing post, but you can modify a post and save it.

[ralfg]

There are some areas in the forum that are not accessible.
I get a database error
I wanted to write them down, but I can't write a message in the forum.
Even then I get an error message: “Please try again. If you come back to this error screen, report the error to an administrator.”
So the forum is read only.

But this forum here also has problems. It takes me a minute to upload a short text here. If an image is attached, the upload often breaks off and I have to log in again.

[Antlers]

Other than the obvious forum errors at the moment, Andy has for some time now be in incommunicado mode for reasons unknown.
The absence of any messages about forum status leaves all members in limbo, i.e. we do not know if the forum will forever remain as read only.

[Bob La Londe]

This forum was sold a long time ago and its gone downhill since then.

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This forum was sold a long time ago and its gone downhill since then.

[Bob La Londe]

I could create a forum on my hosting account, but I don't know if it could handle the traffic. Forums generate tons of traffic from data harvesting vultures. Right now there are 319 "guests" on the CamBam forum. I typically block all IPs associated with aggressive spiders, but that runs the risk of blocking legitimate visitors as well. The alternative is a "private" forum, but there are plenty of people who will refuse to register, and then there are the data privacy issues you yourself pointed out some time back. I refuse to make it a full time job to comply with the laws of every little dictatorship, banana republic, and mob ruled censorship state I will never even visit.

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I could create a forum on my hosting account, but I don't know if it could handle the traffic. Forums generate tons of traffic from data harvesting vultures. Right now there are 319 "guests" on the CamBam forum. I typically block all IPs associated with aggressive spiders, but that runs the risk of blocking legitimate visitors as well. The alternative is a "private" forum, but there are plenty of people who will refuse to register, and then there are the data privacy issues you yourself pointed out some time back. I refuse to make it a full time job to comply with the laws of every little dictatorship, banana republic, and mob ruled censorship state I will never even visit.

[dh42]

Hello

I could create a forum on my hosting account, but I don't know if it could handle the traffic.

Yep, and it is also possible to create a "free" forum where the database is handled by "pro" ... but that become there property and the database can't be exported or imported, like http://www.metabricoleur.com/f35-cambam

Of course, free means pub ! .. and the storage space for attachment is small !! so we need to use external hosting most of the time.

In all cases the main problem is that we can't get the database of the CamBam forum, so we start from scratch and the only way to reconstitute things is to copy/paste manually the posts from a forum to another .. a very long job !!

Ah, just for info, I "saved" the "code snippets" thread to a word document, is is essentially VBscript snippets.

++
David

[Antlers]

Can the forum be cloned using wget ?

https://www.howtogeek.com/how-to-cop...er-using-wget/

[dh42]

Not sure, they talk about website, not forum.

We can use the built in features of the browser to save a forum page (and only one at a time) .. but this is not a database usable to create a new forum, it is only a local html page ... and links in this page still point to the "real" forum, even if the link falls on a captured page ...

++
David

[ralfg]

Can the forum be cloned using wget ?

https://www.howtogeek.com/how-to-cop...er-using-wget/

No, you need to do a database dump with phpMyAdmin or similar.
The individual tables with the data will be exported.
If you have access to the database, you may be able to access it from an external account.
The software is not a problem, you can download it and just install it.
Another problem is that the current version is more than 5 years old. So you would need to update the database to make it work with a current version of the board.
To make an old version work with the old database, you need a server that can run old versions of PHP. Everything has to work together.
If I had a database dump, I could make it work.

[Bob La Londe]

1. Older versions of SMF had a backup feature built into the admin area. (Kinda pisses me off that it isn't on newer versions.) I think you still had to have file access to download the backup, but maybe if you knew the general architecture of the file system, and the file name you could download it with a direct link. Never tried.

2. Many professional hosting companies like mine look like they can run any version of PHP on any site. I have several websites, and they only change the version on the site I ask them to. Actually, whenever I have had resource issues they have increased my resources too, but I don't want to abuse them. They have been pretty good to me. They even helped me with my battles with Chinese & Russian bots and spiders. No previous host could be bothered. I don't recommend anyone anymore, but I use IMHOSTED. Costs me less than $200USD per year for a crazy amount of service, and they are constantly upgrading. (Doesn't count my URL registrations. I do that myself to maintain some autonomy. If they ever screw me I can move to a new host as fast as the pointers will propagate across the net.)

[ralfg]

1. Older versions of SMF had a backup feature built into the admin area. (Kinda pisses me off that it isn't on newer versions.) I think you still had to have file access to download the backup, but maybe if you knew the general architecture of the file system, and the file name you could download it with a direct link. Never tried.

What you need is the database. The SMF Forum can be downloaded and installed. Once you have the database, you can connect it to a new installation.

1. Many professional hosting companies like mine look like they can run any version of PHP on any site.

You could install any PHP version, but you don't. Old versions are a security risk, that's why there are updates.
SMF versions 2.0.16-2.0.17 require PHP 5.3-7.3.
I have PHP 5.3 on my server, but no longer offer it. Even version 7.3 has been EOL for a long time.
I only activate these old versions for my customers if I am sure that they can handle them.

SMF is a free forum software. So there is no reason not to update it. You can see where that leads.
If someone has a backup of the database I can install the forum on one of my servers. I have fast servers that are sometimes almost empty
I've written to Andy about this several times, but never got an answer.

I also have a CamBam website on my server. All plugins, lots of videos and a forum. The forum is in German, but I can also expand it to English. It has been running for over 10 years without any downtime.
So if you need a place where you can write and ask questions about CamBam, there is room there.

[Bob La Londe]

Wrong. The internal backup that used to be in the Admin panel of SMF. In the older versions, downloaded the contents of the forum. Not the forum script. If it was as useless as you say, I wouldn't have mentioned it at all.

The purpose of installing an older version of ph. P is to temporarily get everything up and running so that you can run an upgrade. I am aware of the security risks with older versions PHP, but obscurity would be enough protection for an hour or 2 while doing an upgrade. Most quality professional hosting companies would work with you for something like that.

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Wrong. The internal backup that used to be in the Admin panel of SMF. In the older versions, downloaded the contents of the forum. Not the forum script. If it was as useless as you say, I wouldn't have mentioned it at all.

The purpose of installing an older version of ph. P is to temporarily get everything up and running so that you can run an upgrade. I am aware of the security risks with older versions PHP, but obscurity would be enough protection for an hour or 2 while doing an upgrade. Most quality professional hosting companies would work with you for something like that.

[Bob La Londe]

I am not unfamiliar with SQL databases or SMF. I have restored a form the old way using the old internal backup, and I have restored a forum (and other MySQL linked scripts) by reconnecting to an existing database. I'm not blowing smoke out my ass.

I mentioned the old way because it is an older version of the script, I don't recall when the feature was dropped, and I believe David has admin level access to the forum script.

[Antlers]

If anyone here is on X or instagram, maybe they could contact Andy Payne and ask him to stop playing with crawlybots for a minute and fix the CamBam forum properly.
Details here; https://www.emfcamp.org/schedule/202...rop-in-session