Community
AutoCAD Forum
cancel
Showing results for 
Show  only  | Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Imaging for 2D?

9 REPLIES 9
Reply
Message 1 of 10
eng_posi
470 Views, 9 Replies

Imaging for 2D?

Hello.


I have what is probably an odd question. I work in a plant that runs cutting and engraving cnc machines off of AutoCAD files. The CAD and cutting/engraving are essentially a 2D process, and we have older versions of AutoCAD to run them off of.

 

We often receive panels that have been produced by other companies and are asked to produce replicas. So to convert them into AutoCAD I generally have to take various measurements and then draft the dwg.

 

What my supervisor would like is a means of taking an image of the panels we receive and translate those directly into AutoCAD to save the time and effort that measuring everything by hand entails. I am dubious about the practicality of this, but nonetheless I need to gather some information to see if this is possible, costs, etc.

 

So far I've come up with two potential solutions. First is to use a handheld 2D scanner. This is problematic, however, since the panels we receive often have parts in them (such as switches hot glued into cutouts in the panel) that are difficult to remove. This would seem to make the 2D scanner impractical, since my understanding is that you have to have a perfectly flat surface to obtain an image, you can't, say, hover the handheld above the object in question.

 

The second would be to obtain a 3D scanner, which is something I know little about. But my understanding is you would have to get a 3D rendering program such as Maya (which is unlikely for us), and even if we did so we would still have to translate the 3D to 2D, which, again, may be impractical or impossible.

 

The possible third solution would be to maybe have a digital camera set up so that it takes a straightened and centered photo of the panel, although I suspect this would entail some distortion that might take as much effort to correct as simply measuring and drafting the panel.

 

So, that's where I am at right now. Does anyone have any ideas on how to make this work? Are any of these ideas feasible or do you have other options in mind? Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

9 REPLIES 9
Message 2 of 10
pendean
in reply to: eng_posi

Accuracy is the problem with the 'easy' digital camera option: what level of precision do you need for your parts?

Any solution will require software to take it from the source to your CNC machine sadly.
Message 3 of 10
eng_posi
in reply to: pendean

Short answer is a high level of precision. I measure to three decimal points (inches).

 

Longer answer - actual precision might be less important than proportional accuracy. If everything were accurately proportioned, I could adjust based on a few measurements.

Message 4 of 10
SEANT61
in reply to: eng_posi

With regard to digital photos, let’s experiment.

 

Place a typical panel on a high contrast background and photograph it with the highest resolution digital camera you have available. Take photos from several angles, not just one from straight on. Post them, as well as the dimensions of one reference rectangle (the larger the better).

 

I am playing around with a Perspective <=> Orthographic workflow based on this free app at the Exchange:

https://apps.exchange.autodesk.com/ARCH/en/Detail/Index?id=appstore.exchange.autodesk.com%3astsc_pro...

 

I’d like to see what level of accuracy is possible.


************************************************************
May your cursor always snap to the location intended.
Message 5 of 10
pendean
in reply to: eng_posi

I don't believe AutoCAD is quite there yet: try the RECAP app in AutoCAD 2015 and see how close it can get, it may be all you need.
http://www.autodesk.com/products/recap/overview

Autodesk otherwise is moving in that direction with another suite of apps https://www.qqq.123dapp.com/gopremium but the scale may be too small for your needs.

While free apps are fun to play with you ight not find they are good enough for a reliable business application moving forward.
Message 6 of 10
eng_posi
in reply to: SEANT61

SEANT61- sorry for the delay. I took a few photos, hope these will work. The dimensions of the panel are 12" w. x 9" t.

Message 7 of 10
eng_posi
in reply to: SEANT61

One more...

Message 8 of 10
SEANT61
in reply to: eng_posi

The experiment was moderately succssessful, though did not come anywhere near the tolerance you were looking to maintain. 

 

A couple of issues that may have a bearing on the result:

 

Either there is some camera distortion at play, or the panel itself is mildly curved.  In the drawing PreTrim (shown in image InitView) we can see that the projection line does not match exactly to the panel edge.

 

Matching lines works best with high contrast photos.  The panel is placed on a high contrast background, but I still needed to to reference black buttongs on a black faceplate.

 

 

Nonetheless, the BackTrack.dwg shows the two resulting Perspective <=> Ortho transforms, a composite using the higher confidence lines, and a Ortho <=> Perspective backtrack to compare the results.


************************************************************
May your cursor always snap to the location intended.
Message 9 of 10
eng_posi
in reply to: SEANT61

Thanks Seant61. It might still be worth experimenting with. The only problem is that we use a legacy version of AutoCAD so I"m not sure that we would even be able to use the app at this time.

Message 10 of 10
SEANT61
in reply to: eng_posi

That is correct; the version at the Exchange only has 2012+ compatibility.  I suspect that the undelying code could be adapted to 2007, perhaps, but I have no way to test that theory. 

 

 


************************************************************
May your cursor always snap to the location intended.

Can't find what you're looking for? Ask the community or share your knowledge.

Post to forums  

Autodesk Design & Make Report

”Boost