LaserDotter - a MOP for generating a laser engrave from a semitone image

[GeoffreyGRoy]

After exploring  the capabilities of the Semitone plugin (https://cambamcnc.com/forum/index.php?topic=6927.0) from EddyCurrent it become evident that to laser engrave this type of image (lots of dots) some additional MOP capabilities were required.  I have therefore attempted to develop this new MOP plugin for CamBam.

While the Semitone plugin can generate all the essential geometry, the engrave paths need to be then computed.  My first attempt was to create a set of Circles (for each dot Point) with a diameter equal to the depth (Zvalue) of the Drill operation (with a nominal cutter with suitable Vee angle of 53.13 deg, so that the Diam == Depth).  This proved to be quite inefficient as it took forever to create the many thousands of Circles.

With that experience, I have now created a purpose-built MOP (LaserDotter) that can operate on PointLists, Circles and  Polylines.  The attachment include the DLL file and a short User Guide.

For the selected Entities, the MOP generates circular engrave paths to fill the "dots".  The close up image shows a typical result (the scale is MM)

Comments, suggestions and any bugs reports would be greatly appreciated.

I have now added Vers 1.2, see later post for details.

Geoff

[dh42]

Hello Geoff

thanks for this plugin

I'm not really aware about laser usage ; is this plugin a replacement to the "Laser engraving for greyscale images" plugin or is it for a different usage ?

++
David

[GeoffreyGRoy]

Dear David

Not a replacement - it is used to "engrave" lots of circular dots that are generated by the Semitone plugin (or perhaps some other third party tool that creates circle or polylines that can be "filled in").  If you have the "dots" defined in the geometry as circles or pollines then you could use a Pocket MOP to do the same job, but I found the computation times quite long.  The best result is to use the Semitone plugin that generates a PointList, and providing the correct Vee angle is selected (53.13 deg) the drill Depth can be taken as the Diameter of the dot.  I have also created an updated version of the Semitone plugin that facilitates this.

Geoff

[GeoffreyGRoy]

In the first version of this plugin, I converted Points (with a z-value) into small circles that were "pocketed" to create black dots to emulate the grey-scale.  This new version has another option (for PoinLists only), to create "dots" (actually very short engrave paths) with the intention to replace the Z-value with a laser power (i.e Speed) level so that the "dots" might appear larger/darker as the original Z-value increased (negatively, of course).

This option is intended to assist with creating finer resolution (say 1mm or less) laser images than might be possible with the first version. I will publish some examples in the Laser Engraving for Grey Scale Images plugin thread. (https://cambamcnc.com/forum/index.php?topic=8840.msg70273#msg70273) .

Geoff