LASER CUTTER!!!

[Cabe]

I never thought I would ever hear the words "pretty basic" attached to anything with a laser

[Karyudo]

I thought I'd posted something to this effect long ago, but apparently not:

How about using the laser to cut out a "camera obscurer" shield thingy for the Canon A590IS? You could cut it flat from dark cardboard or plastic, and fold and/or score it in appropriate places to let the flash and lens poke through. This would present a nice even, dark profile in platen reflections.

[daniel_reetz]

That's a great idea. I'll give it a try tonight. Since i finally finished moving, I can finally focus on the portable book scanner idea again. I have quite a few new laser cut parts and ideas to share...

[daniel_reetz]

What would be kinda cool and synergistic is if you can think of some clever parts for BookScanner v.4.0 that can be made in bulk with the Epilog, and then sold (like the electronics kits) for profit that continues to fund the development of the BooSca...

What sort of input does the Epilog take? CorelDRAW? AutoCAD? SolidWorks? (All things I'm good at...)

This is definitely the way things are going (though I'll probably only use my laser for prototyping). I've got some ideas and progress photos up.

The driver seems almost too-perfectly suited to working with CorelDraw. I'm using X4 -- I've always been an Illustrator guy but now I just love Corel. However, my main skillset is Maya. Do you think I'd be happier with Solidworks or AutoCAD? I was thinking about getting my hands on Rhinoceros because of the excellent slicing-dicing features they have, so I could print out 3D objects.

But to better answer your question, it hooks up to any software, raster or vector. It exposes itself to the system as a printer with a special properties page. In the document, the shape, size, and color of linework can all be used to program how the laser will cut (or engrave). It is possible to color-code stuff in documents to get different results. For example, on the plywood box in the above link, I used two colors. One to engrave the small text (20% power, 100% speed, 1khz) and another to cut the outline (100% power, 15% speed, 500hz). Having seen how the whole thing works now, I understand what the real secret sauce of these lasers is -- it's the vector sorting algos they have in them. If you send it, for example, a square containing engravable text, it will engrave the text and then cut the square. It knows what any given shape is inside of, and it also knows a bit about where it is going. Often when a job starts it is interesting to watch it travel, because it is doing some kind of cool path-optimization.

I had good results playing with your camera cover idea, sorry, no pictures yet. I will take some after I find the right material. I might just do black synthetic felt.

[Karyudo]

That's all cool info -- thanks for posting it!

I'm a CorelDRAW user from way back. Self-taught, but I'm *good* at it. I haven't taken a graphics course since high school, but a few years back I put together a 6-colour (CMYK + two spots), four-page print job that the commercial printer who printed it didn't have to change *at all* before burning plates and sticking it on the press. I tried using Illustrator, and the first thing that pissed me right off was not being able to find the "Add Page" feature -- because it *didn't exist*. Curve editing also sorta sucked by comparison, and about that point I lost interest in Illustrator.

I've also used AutoCAD (releases 9 through 2000, I think?) and I've taken a SolidWorks course. You'll note that my AutoCAD experience really pre-dates its competence in 3D. Nevertheless, I find SolidWorks is incredibly good, especially at capturing design intent. You can rough out any vague idea you like, and only after you've got it roughed in do you have to add dimensions and constraints. You can use metric and Imperial measurements in the same model, without conversion (handy when you're Canadian, I can assure you). You can build assemblies that actually work on screen (which I'd imagine would be perfect for the portable scanner). Highly recommended. I'll bet AutoCAD Inventor and its ilk can do something similar, but I can't help but think that since SW was designed from the start to be how it is, rather than starting from 2D and having 3D bolted on at some point, that it's going to work better than AutoCAD for what it does.