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Thread: The LaserBoy Thread

  1. #61
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    I've had some issues with that too. My network card was flaky (so I replaced it). But it was hanging on the connection to the laserboy.org server. If your Internet is down, you can unplug your Ethernet cable and your PC will know it has no connection. So it just skips the check.

    It should just time out, but it doesn't always do that for some reason.

    I got the code from Boost. It's in a try{} block! Exception handling! YUK!

    Your command line idea is nice but that would be a totally new application.

    James.
    Last edited by james; 01-12-2015 at 21:27.
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  2. #62
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    New version time again!

    http://laserboy.org/code/LaserBoy_2015_01_12.zip

    I added new effects:

    half_cylinder
    cylinder
    hemisphere
    sphere
    film_strip

    The first 4 distort a flattened image into the 3D shape of its name. These effects are defined in both frame and frame set effects. The frame effect pans the still frame across the 3D shape, making an animation of its distortion.

    The frame set effects take a set of frames and distort all of them to the shape.

    The "film_strip" effect takes a frame set and scrolls it across the screen like a strip of movie film.

    This effect can be applied to a frame set and the result can be distorted to one of the 3D shapes for some really nice effects!

    This is what I used to do The Earth. I made two original frames, each with half of the map and copied them a few times. Then I film_strip effected that and ran the film_strip animation through the hemisphere effect. Then I cut out one full rotation of the Earth from that frame set.

    I also re-wrote a lot of the effects code. It does bounds checking now!

    James.
    Last edited by james; 01-12-2015 at 14:03.
    Creator of LaserBoy!
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    All software has a learning curve usually proportional to its capabilities and unique features. Pointing with a mouse is in no way easier than tapping a key.

  3. #63
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    Oh I forgot to mention that I also added warp and swirl effects.

    Swirl twists space around the Z axis radially from the center outward. It's pretty neat!

    Works best on art that is optimized with a lot of points to move.

    James.
    Creator of LaserBoy!
    LaserBoy is free and runs in Windows, MacOS and Linux (including Raspberry Pi!).
    Download LaserBoy!
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    All software has a learning curve usually proportional to its capabilities and unique features. Pointing with a mouse is in no way easier than tapping a key.

  4. #64
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    So, phone-home is baked in by default now? No way to disable it?

  5. #65
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    Not in the current version anyway.

    I only just added it in December.
    Creator of LaserBoy!
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    All software has a learning curve usually proportional to its capabilities and unique features. Pointing with a mouse is in no way easier than tapping a key.

  6. #66
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    Here! This is much better!

    Our Beautiful Earth!

    This should scan very nicely.

    It is stripped points so you can re-optimize it however you like, BUT, I just figured out how to do very intelligent points removal that is somewhat destructive, but does a nice job of curve fitting.

    The new points reduction technique will come out in the next version. Still testing it.

    This Earth is made from a real DXF map of the Earth.

    It's about as accurate as it gets within the limits of scannability.

    It's even rotated 23 degrees off axis!

    James.
    Attached Files Attached Files
    Creator of LaserBoy!
    LaserBoy is free and runs in Windows, MacOS and Linux (including Raspberry Pi!).
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    All software has a learning curve usually proportional to its capabilities and unique features. Pointing with a mouse is in no way easier than tapping a key.

  7. #67
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    Pretty cool. My scanner is 6" away from my wall so I couldn't really tell if it looked good or not but I could definitely see the world rotating. I didn't add any points. Didn't notice it was stripped until the second read. I don't think I could add any without a lot of flicker, though.

  8. #68
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    Cool.

    I'm pretty excited about my curve fitting points reduction method.

    It seems to work very well.

    I need to test it thoroughly with the other functions that remove points during the minimization phase.

    This could be a super useful tool for people who import vector art from non-laser applications.

    James.
    Creator of LaserBoy!
    LaserBoy is free and runs in Windows, MacOS and Linux (including Raspberry Pi!).
    Download LaserBoy!
    YouTube Tutorials
    Ask me about my LaserBoy Correction Amp Kit for sale!
    All software has a learning curve usually proportional to its capabilities and unique features. Pointing with a mouse is in no way easier than tapping a key.

  9. #69
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    Quote Originally Posted by james View Post
    Cool.

    I'm pretty excited about my curve fitting points reduction method.
    Are you using something like Douglas Peucker?

  10. #70
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    I don't know.

    I just thought about it and decided that there must be a way to remove points based on their proximity to each other.

    But I knew I could not just omit points.

    So I came up with an idea.

    Let's say you have 4 vertices in a row; that form a segment.

    a --> b --> c --> d

    Let's say that (b --> c) and (c --> d) are both lit and the same color.

    Let's say that the length of (b --> c) is less than or equal to the system setting of insignificant_distance.

    The first part of the method is to remove vertex (c), but that would mean that (b) is now connected straight to (d).

    So the curve fitting part of the idea is to move (b) to the average of (b) and (c); (b2)

    a --> b2 --> d

    The trick is to only remove one vertex for each pass through all of the vertices, fitting each time and to traverse through the vertices backwards (stop looking as soon as you find one), until there are no more vectors with a length of less than or equal to insignificant_distance. You never look at the first or the last vertex (except to check the last vertices' lit and color status).

    I can start with a circle (many sided polygon) with vertices that are very close together and end up with a circle (polygon of fewer sides) with all of the vectors about the same length of just a bit over the insignificant_distance!

    Pretty cool, huh?

    James.
    Last edited by james; 01-17-2015 at 10:03.
    Creator of LaserBoy!
    LaserBoy is free and runs in Windows, MacOS and Linux (including Raspberry Pi!).
    Download LaserBoy!
    YouTube Tutorials
    Ask me about my LaserBoy Correction Amp Kit for sale!
    All software has a learning curve usually proportional to its capabilities and unique features. Pointing with a mouse is in no way easier than tapping a key.

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