Tracing a picture in CAD

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10-26-2005, 02:29 AM
DennisCNC

Tracing a picture in CAD

Hi all,

Is it possible to take a pic put it in the background and trace it in CAD and have the dimensions equal the original part? Kind of like digitizing.
With camera mounted and square to the center of the item photographed.
10-26-2005, 03:44 AM
wms

OneCNC XR2 has just such a feature in all of it's product line, from Express to Expert, called "Trace Image.

It will import and trace just about any picture format.

No need to do the tracing as it does it automatically..
10-26-2005, 04:09 AM
cbass

Isn't this essentially a raster to vector feature?

If so, does OneCNC allow you to set the tracing sensitivity the way stand-alone programs do?

Carlo
10-26-2005, 05:16 AM
wms

Yes... you can set the threshold. Manually or let it do it automatically.
10-26-2005, 03:27 PM
buscht

I do this all the time in Autocad.
Its not perfect. Meaning, you can't expect +-.001 tolerance, but +-.016 is possible.
I don't worry too much about the scale of the picture at first. I simply trace it, check the measurements, and then scale it up or down as needed.
10-26-2005, 03:41 PM
turmite

Quote:

Originally Posted by buscht

I do this all the time in Autocad.
Its not perfect. Meaning, you can't expect +-.001 tolerance, but +-.016 is possible.
I don't worry too much about the scale of the picture at first. I simply trace it, check the measurements, and then scale it up or down as needed.

buscht if I understood WMS correctly, OneCNC will do the work automatically! Now that sounds interesting.

Mike
10-26-2005, 04:58 PM
ger21

Quote:

Originally Posted by turmite

buscht if I understood WMS correctly, OneCNC will do the work automatically! Now that sounds interesting.

Mike

Can someone post a OneCNC raster to vector conversion? Both the raster version and the resulting vector version?

I've never seen a raster to vector conversion that was acceptable, imo. I'd rather hand trace, the results are so much better it's worth the extra time involved.
10-26-2005, 11:19 PM
wms

2 Attachment(s)

Here is one..just a quick one..something I grabbed off Google Image..just set Onecnc to automatic..
10-26-2005, 11:57 PM
ger21

That's pretty good, but that image is also very clean. Notice the bottoms of the A's. :) How about something where the edges arent so crisp, and with more curves? Thanks, btw. ;)
10-27-2005, 02:58 AM
nervis1

1 Attachment(s)

Heres one thats not too clean ;)
10-27-2005, 03:02 AM
nervis1

1 Attachment(s)

And the trace, first attempt, no settings changed from default. This took about 5 seconds to complete, and the engrave toolpath took about 2 min.
10-27-2005, 03:50 AM
wms

3 Attachment(s)

As requested..Again on automatic..no threshold adjustment..
10-27-2005, 03:54 AM
DennisCNC

Good info!!

I'm not looking for high tolerance, +-1/32 will be just fine for me.

I just want to do what this thing does but, keeping my arm and leg!

http://www.nemi.com/digitizer.htm

Machine mostly used to digitize templates of counter tops to be machined from granite slabs. Price of 13K
10-27-2005, 04:28 AM
CerveloRod

OneCNC web site doesn't list any pricing, which always scares a hobbyist. What price range does OneCNC run? I would love to find something that did R2V that good, but I imagine it's thousands within OneCNC.

Thanks,
Rod
10-27-2005, 08:12 AM
tauscnc

Funny you ask,,,I just called today to find out myself.

The basic mill is $1500 - 15% till the end of this month.
The next mill is $3000 -15% ya da ya da
I think they said the next is like 4500 and the last is 6000.

They did not mention up keep fees and if you want to upgrade to the next version you pay just the difference. You also get free updates for the life of the program if I heard correctly. The mill advantage ($3000 one and she said it is spose to go to $3500 onec XR is released) is the most popular.

taus
10-27-2005, 11:42 AM
ger21

Thanks guys, those are pretty good results. :)
10-29-2005, 08:07 AM
helix77

I ALSO TRACE WITH AUTOCAD........... IF YOU INSERT YOUR RASTER IMAGE AND TRACE USEING SPLINES WITH ALOT OF DIFFRENT DRAG POINTS (GRIPS) YOU CAN REALLY FINE TUNE THE DRAWING BUT FOR THE MOST PART IT WILL NEVER BE AS CLEAN AS AN AUTOMATIC VECTORIZING SOFTWARE... IM NOT FAMILLIAR WITH ONECNC
BUT THE PRICE IS WAY TO HIGH FOR JUST TRACEING----
TRY A PRODUCT CALLED TRACEART ITS ONLY ABOUT $80.00
http://www.freefirestudio.com/traceart.htm
I DONT OWN IT BUT I DOWNLOADED THE FREE VERSION AND IT WORKS GREAT
10-29-2005, 04:53 PM
ger21

Quote:

Originally Posted by helix77

I ALSO TRACE WITH AUTOCAD........... IF YOU INSERT YOUR RASTER IMAGE AND TRACE USEING SPLINES WITH ALOT OF DIFFRENT DRAG POINTS (GRIPS) YOU CAN REALLY FINE TUNE THE DRAWING BUT FOR THE MOST PART IT WILL NEVER BE AS CLEAN AS AN AUTOMATIC VECTORIZING SOFTWARE

If I trace in AutoCAD, I can get it much cleaner than ANY raster to vector software. It just takes a LOT longer than a few mouse clicks. :)
10-29-2005, 07:06 PM
PEU

I use this free online service (no registration needed) from time to time, it does a pretty decent job:

http://www.roitsystems.com/cgi-bin/autotrace/tracer.pl

sometimes is down, but it usually work

Pablo
10-31-2005, 05:58 AM
helix77

OF COURSE IT TAKES LONGER. IVE SPENT HOURS AND HOURS TRACEING USEING AUTOCAD.I FIND THAT WHEN YOU TRACE LIKE THAT YOU CAN CORRECT ALOT OF INACCURACIES TO ACHIEVE EXACTLY THE RESULT YOU WANT ..... BUT SOMETIMES A RASTER TO VECTOR IS GOOD ENOUGH.....YOU KNOW THE WHOLE TIME AND MONEY THING.

please excuse any bad spelling...im just a machinist!!!!
05-11-2006, 08:23 PM
Kuhlmann75

1 Attachment(s)

Vectorized using CasMate.
05-15-2006, 11:32 AM
Beaker

I've just started to use this program http://www.imagetogcode.com/ so far has been great.
Have a go.

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