Lasers engrave too, and should produce the same results in both of your examples, although much quicker in the first example.
Even on a CNC router or a mill, there is a large amount of variation in the results depending on spindle speed, cutter diameter, grain structure and other physical properties of the material being engraved, etc. Secondary operations are also a consideration. If a wood plaque is going to be engraved, spray painted to fill the engraving, and surface sanded to remove the excess paint over spray, the top surface details resulting from different engraving processes probably won't matter at all to the finished product. I can see people wanting the fastest path for some jobs and the slower consistent engraving direction options. Is there any way to make that a parameter that can be set? Isn't that always the way? Give people an Exclusive OR choice and they want the Inclusive OR option, and they inevitably ask, "Can't we have both?" :-) Thanks for your great work on gcmc. Really good stuff there. On 07/03/2015 05:38 PM, Bertho Stultiens wrote: > Hi all, > > While porting the Hershey fonts for engraving it occurred to me that > they are very heavy in pen-up/down movements because many strokes are > partials. There is plenty of room for optimization, reducing the rapid > moves by about 30%, but that means that engraving is not done in a > consistent direction anymore. > > To illustrate what I mean, consider the letter V: > 1) single stroke movement: > - rapid move to left top > - pen down > - move to middle bottom > - move to right top > - pen up > > 2) double stroke movement: > - rapid move to left top > - pen down > - move to middle bottom > - pen up > - rapid move to right top > - pen down > - move to middle bottom > - pen up > > The first is faster (quite a bit) because you prevent Z movements and > extra travel. However, the directional change of the mill may be visible > in the stroke. On the other hand, the mill may not properly revert to > the middle bottom in the second case either. > > What is the experience of the people here? What would be preferable? A > quick (case 1) path or a directionally consistent path (case 2)? > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Don't Limit Your Business. Reach for the Cloud. GigeNET's Cloud Solutions provide you with the tools and support that you need to offload your IT needs and focus on growing your business. Configured For All Businesses. Start Your Cloud Today. https://www.gigenetcloud.com/ _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
