Hi guys
This whole ArtCAM story is a real pain in the butt.
I wasn't taking note so I actually missed it - ordered all the parts for a LowRider (all on the water as we speak) and while I am waiting, went to download and install ArtCAM.
That is when I found out...
The thing is that I want to do bas-relief work and Artcam was the most viable (and recommended ) solution cost wise - you SA guys will understand what paying in $$$ can be like.
Yes, there are other packages out there but...
I have seen some tutorials about doing photo to bas using Blender but the learning curve on Blender is ridiculous!!!
So I thought about it and came up with the following points after asking the question "How does it actually work?" (converting an image to G-Code that is)
- Get the image you want to use.
- Convert it to grey-scale.
- Figure out the final dimensions (width, length, height of relief) and feed them in.
- Set stuff like tool diameter, shape, max cut depth, feed speed etc etc
- Using bas relief height, work out the height of each color [ height of relief for black, 0 for white and increment by (1/255) * grey value for the rest ]
- Using tool diameter figure out how far each linear step needs to be and how far each step-over should be.
- Work out the tool path and generate the G-Code in one process.
OK, I have made it sound one heck of a lot more simple than it actually is but you get the idea.
Now the last time I did something as calculation heavy as this, Visual Basic 4 was the "flavor of the day" - but I still have a copy of VB6 so...
Well it would not install on Win7pro so I got Visual Studio and installed that and started.
Got the image to grey working, and the resize image to width/length and just started figuring out how I was going to figure out the tool path when Visual Studio went bezerk and screwed up my PC for me.
Now here is the thing:
Essentially what I outlined is exactly what all these "image to bas" programs do basically.
Yes there are probably some clever bits that read ahead and alter the path height or whatever but it is not "magic" - they all start out with the image and convert it to G-Code and use some clever inline processes along the way.
And all us hobby machinists that would like to do bas work need something like this - NOT the uber costly "Professional" software licenses that the bean-counters are holding us to ransom for these days - and then taking off the market.
As I said, I tried in VB but as any developer will tell you, if you don't use it you loose it and my VB skills have not been used for about 20 years.
So I want to do it in PHP and see what I can get going. (I am a web developer and I use PHP exclusively)
But with PHP there is one problem: it is going to take more than 30 seconds to do the whole process and the browser will DEFINITELY time out on even a small image.
Now, I have figured out a way around that and once my LowRider is up and running (maybe about August I hope) I'm going to start developing.
Anyone else interested in collaborating?
We will need math algorithm geniuses and probably a bunch of "testers"... (group)