Creating halftone pictures with a cnc machine - lines or dots

[PEU]

Another photo, this time my wife:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=op_tHMJI7FY




Pablo

[Kobus_Joubert]

Hey Pablo, you could have used a nicer sheet of wood for such a lovely lady

Looking good, mind sharing your sizes, settings and bits used. I tried one the past weekend and it was not THIS good.

[PEU]

LOL yeah, I used an old piece of scrap melamine, I will buy mdf coated with melamine that is used for drawer bottoms and cabinet back panels, its only 5mm thick and very cheap because melamine is on one side only, but in the meantime you use what you have at hand

I used white/black, a 45deg V bit, min diameter 0.4mm and max diameter 2mm, spacing also 2mm, Z needs to be very accurate using these settings because when the hole is 2mm, and there are many next to each other, there is almost no material left in the surface, and you need it for contrast.
I did not show the other side of the board for a reason I set it up a little deeper and in the hair area the holes ate all the melamine.

[Kobus_Joubert]

OK so basically it is one of those ENGRAVING bits. I used my 90 deg 12mm bit.... I see some contrast, but not good enough.

What is the overall size of the piece ?

Did you wipe in BLACK paint to fill the holes for more contrast or is that the wood colour we see. (brownish)

[olz]

Salve!

Originally Posted by Metalfusion

Version 2.0 is up!

Great job Tomi!

It would be possible in future implement halftones with straight lines?


Abs.

Paulo Marcos G. Bubolz
----------------------------------
Design libertário - Arquivos Gratuitos para Fresa/Corte

[PEU]

Originally Posted by Kobus_Joubert

OK so basically it is one of those ENGRAVING bits. I used my 90 deg 12mm bit.... I see some contrast, but not good enough.

What is the overall size of the piece ?

Did you wipe in BLACK paint to fill the holes for more contrast or is that the wood colour we see. (brownish)

I used PCB engraving bit, because the bigger one I had that came in a router bits set wasn't pointy enough. Im looking for a local source of this type of engraving bit http://cgi.ebay.com/1-4-Router-CNC-E...item1e63a3e904 it looks pointy as needed for the job.
The board size is 210x210mm. Yes, after machining I used a very liquid mixture of black tint to darken the holes and then wipe the excess with a cloth.

[Metalfusion]

Originally Posted by olz

Salve!
It would be possible in future implement halftones with straight lines?

Please, do some research before asking. Version 2.0 also does straight lines.

And for everybody else too: If you haven't noticed, there is a user guide in the readme file that comes with the software. It briefly covers every setting and feature that the program has.

No offense

[PEU]

Non taken maybe a little question mark that links to the help file would save you answer that question again.
Looking at the source code I found this comment that made me happy:

'the size limits from dxf export tab also affect the gcode generation

I just tried it and indeed a lot of holes are not created thus saving a lot of time.
In my wife carving it would go from 10081 to 6312 dots, about 40% less machining time

Cool

[Metalfusion]

Version 2.1 is up!

The changes from version 2.0 mainly consist of some significant bug/glitch fixes. It is highly recommended to update. The dot halftone toolpath is now optimised, it goes back and forth instead of doing long rapids.

Changelog entry:

4.9.2011 V 2.1

Polishing, some important fixes.

IMPROVEMENTS / FIXES:
	-Fixed multiple problems with path width calculation algorithm.
		-More accurate results with large line spacing values.
		-Much less noise / artefacts with small resolution source images.
		-Fixed path endpoint sizing problems.
		-Improved performance with large image files.
	-Optimised toolpath generation ( shorter rapids ) for dot halftones. 
	-Added "optimiserapids" option to save file format. When set to zero, all path filler lines will be run in the same direction.
	-Fixed a nasty memory leak where none of the memory allocated for the path data was freed.
		-It was caused by the Blitzmax's carbage collector's inability to handle circular references.
	-Now works with huge amounts of filler dots ( tested with over 5 Million dots ). 
		-Also tested to work with up to 100 Megapixel source images.
	-Changed the default settings to give a better first impression.

Download here:
http://www.students.tut.fi/~syvajar3...alftone_21.zip

[KenC]

Thousand Thanks! This is wonderful!

[PEU]

Thanks Tomi, it gets better and better every release. Thanks!!

[Pixelated]

I thought I'd just add that you can create these sorts of images in Illustrator with the Object Raster script from Scriptographer.org. e.g.

[lunaj76]

Kind of a Half-Tone thing. I wonder how they do this?

http://www.interlam-design.com/Mirage_ProductList.cfm

[Jason Marsha]

Perfect for cnc.
Take a peep at their wall panels which they call art diffusion

http://www.interlam-design.com/Art_Product_Search.cfm

Its an impressive gallery of designs of which many can be done with a cnc machine.

[PEU]

Originally Posted by lunaj76

Kind of a Half-Tone thing. I wonder how they do this?

http://www.interlam-design.com/Mirage_ProductList.cfm

Check: http://jasondorie.com/page_cnc.html (Reactor Entry) the process take time (more resolution, more time) but the result is the same.

It works like a worm eating the photo, at worm speeds

[JasonDorie]

I have a version of the Reactor software written to use your graphics card for processing, and it is easily 10x faster, more if you have a good card. So far I've been restricting that version to commercial users, but I may change that.

I also have a halftone program with similar capabilities to Tomi's, and a realtime preview.

Jason

[PEU]

If you ever release it let us know Jason, in the meantime is fun to see the worms eat the whole picture

Thanks for the free software!!

[Gerald D]

I like the "worms" much more than the other patterns because they give a better definition:

[lunaj76]

Cool Thanks!

[KenC]

Thanks for the great software!

[Jason Marsha]

Oops I crashed VCarve with the Reactor output file. I guess the pic was too big.

[JasonDorie]

I've done that a couple times now. I usually do the joining and the carving paths in sections now and keep an eye on the memory usage as I go. 1.7Gb is the point it goes boom.

[Jason Marsha]

Ok that's good. I thought I had to install some more memory.

[rischoof]

Does somebody know how I can load a picture in reactor 1.2?
When I open reactor 1.2 I don't know how to copy in or load a picture.
must it be a black and white picture?

[JasonDorie]

Just drag & drop it from your Explorer, and no, it doesn't have to be black & white.

[PEU]

Found another program that uses a different algorithm:

http://www.evilmadscientist.com/2012...in-processing/

Freeware!


Pablo