Scanning and Scaling

[robinsoncr@naxs.net]

I haven't purchased scanner yet and was wondering. Can I take a printout of a nested panel that has parts with holes etc. and scan it, then import into Vector then scale the drawing?

The cutlist program doesn't export dxf or dwg.

If I can't do this, is there an efficient method of creating a list of seed parts and then simply resizing them and placing them?

Thank,

Chris

[rgbrown@itexas.net]

Chris,

I don't know of any programs that will do what you are asking, "Can I take a printout of a nested panel that has parts with holes etc. and scan it, then import into Vector then scale the drawing?" with any degree of accuracy.

Most CAD programs will allow one to import and scale drawings. Many will allow one to make "parts, units or other items" that are scaleable and will enter the drawing as a scaled piece with all the attributes of the original properly scaled and positioned.

[raj]

Chris,
I had a similar problem, where I wanted to scan in ornamental designs and then do simple operations on them such as scaling, trimming, offsetting, mirroring, even extruding a profile of say a cornice. I wanted a simple fast way to produce a shop bot file from a scanned file. I ended up writing my own program that does all this. The only unfortunate part is that that the whole thing is Lisp based and runs in a Lisp environment on my computer hence not usable by the majority of the people. But it is indeed a life saver for me because it allows me to control rasters of the scan in all kind of wonderful ways. For example if I have a leaf ornament and I need to bend it onto a curved surface, this is relatively easy because I can offset each raster in Z according to the "backing" profile. Maybe shopbot will take on the idea and make a real supported product out of it. From my own point of view I wanted simplicity and didn't want to spend endless hours doing editing in a CAD tool with point clouds and what not to do something which was relatively simple !!

[robinsoncr@naxs.net]

Well, ****. Excuse my French. I'll just build a file with seed cab parts and rescale them as needed....until I can get something that will take the Cabnetware cutlist file and do the rest.

Thanks,

Chris

[rgbrown@itexas.net]

" take the Cabnetware cutlist file and do the rest"

Chris, that can be done... I think.

[imserv@imsrv.com]

Chris, you may be able to use the Vector Macro Tool Bar (MTB) to import the data into Vector.

The Macro Tool Bar is a program that can access functions in Vector Cad, Vector Cam, and Notepad, using simple Basic like commands and vector menus.

I could visualize opening the file in Notepad or the Vector NC editor and then using MTB to transfer the data to Vector geometry.

Send me a copy of the cut list file and I will be glad to look at it. It sounds like a fairly simple project, depending on the way the data file is structured.

Fred Smith - IMService
IMService E-mail (mailto:imserv@imsrv.com)

[gerald_d]

Chris, have you forgotten the other thread (http://www.talkshopbot.com/forum/messages/31/1433.html?) that you started on this topic?

[gerald_d]

Looking strictly at the title of this particular thread, I think that it will be a waste of time and energy to use Cabnetware to produce a print out and then use a scanner to convert the print back to digital information. In the other thread you showed that Cabnetware already gives you a .jpg file - if you print and scan that file you will only get another .jpg file of much worse quality.

[robinsoncr@naxs.net]

Gerald,

I didn't forget. The previous thread was trying to take the eCabinets jpg picture of the nested panel and convert it. We determined that the jpg picture was too low in quality to do so.

This thread was geared towards taking a black and white wireframe printout and inquiring whether it was possible to scale it in Vector. As you can see, others have tried this and didn't have good results. The printout quality is actually better than the jpg quality.

That leaves me with Cabnetware. Can I use the cutlist output? CW exports the cutlist in a file format that I think is comma deliminated. Fred is going to look at that end. (Fred, I'll email you the cutlist data.)

Thanks for following up.

Chris Robinson