Release Candidate 6 of LightBurn 2.0.00 is now available here:
Important Notice on System Compatibility
Starting in 2.0, LightBurn supports only Windows 10 (and higher) or macOS 11 (and higher) operating systems. Linux operating systems are no longer supported.
2.0 will be the final release that supports macOS 11 — subsequent releases will require macOS 12 (and higher).
You will always be able to use the most recent version of LightBurn that is compatible with your operating system and was released within your license’s valid update period. To download an earlier version of LightBurn that is compatible with an outdated operating system, visit our release repository.
This build includes the following updates:
Change Log for LightBurn-v2.0.00-RC-6
Changes Since LightBurn-v2.0.00-RC-5
Bug Fixes
Click or drag selection of a node could add to the list multiple times (#851)
Logic for grid array total size was not working for total width/height calculations
Fixed text centering / alignment (#859)
Fixed issue causing Laser Move window to overwrite the users Jog Speed and Distance values if the Laser Power was set above 0%.
Grouped images framed wrong after moving (#862)
Double-click + drag now shows drag rect (#863)
Numbers with group separators broke the parser (#864)
Unnamed/unused DXF insert blocks weren’t cleaned up properly (#866)
So I downloaded RC5 a few days ago, and RC6 a few hours ago. I was having camera issues with RC5 and no better with RC6. Apart from random issues with configuring the camera display in the camera control window (brightness, exposure, contrast and the odd blank screen) I also noticed my camera is now mirrored! I closed RC6 and loaded my usual 1.7.08 and the display in camera control window is still mirrored. It was working perfectly before playing with the release candidates. OK, so I went through the camera lens calibration AND camera alignment routines again in 1.7.08 because I need that working. And before you say anything - yes, I chose the 4 points in the right order 1-2-3-4 (even though the display was still mirrored in wizard). After restarting Lightburn the overlay display is now correctly shown BUT the camera control live view is still mirrored. I can sort of work with it like that because the important part for aligning work pieces is still functional, but it’s annoying the camera control display is wrong. I cannot find a way to correct it, but I will try loading a saved backup preferences file later to see if that helps. I thought these RC installs worked entirely separate to your stable install? Anyway, that’s the last time I try a RC until I get this issue fixed.
I’m using LightBurn Pro 2.0.00-RC-6 and I noticed after a previous update (at least 2 ago) LightBurn is failing to read the current coordinates of my laser, I’m thinking that this is connected to the 'Move to Laser Position" not working anymore as well. I know I have a connection to my machine as I can read the settings and control the machine. I also checked with LightBurn V1.7.08 to rule out my machine being the issue and verified that ‘Move to Position’ and ‘Get Coordinates’ work as advertised.
Please let me know as to what I might be missing?
Windows 11
Chinesium 1300x900 130/60 Watt
Rudia Controller
RDC-V15.01.35
Hi Chris - the camera control window shows the raw output from the camera, which then goes through a series of transforms to make it scaled appropriately for your machine (that’s the calibration steps) - it’s then placed on your work area as the corrected scaled image. That’s why your image appears to be backwards, because it’s not the same image - it’s the raw output from the camera.
I suspect if you are able to go into your camera settings in Windows and invert the image at a system level, before LightBurn processes it, you should be able to get the two to match, but you’ll need to calibrate the camera system again to account for the mirrored input image. I’m asking internally to confirm, but I suspect this is the issue.
Hi Chris, I’m the dev who wrote the new camera drivers.
LightBurn doesn’t do horizontal flipping, not even internally. There are no settings which affect that, so choosing backup preferences won’t change anything. The only thing we’ve ever seen ‘mirror’ the camera image were OS-level virtual camera systems.
You are correct that there should be no way for 2.0 RC to affect a prior working 1.7.08 install.
Even if 2.0 somehow changed a system-level setting (and I’m not sure how it could, or where) then you should be seeing the effect in every program, including the Windows camera app, and in the Settings…Bluetooth & Devices…Cameras dialog. (which has a ‘reset’ option you could try)
I suspect what’s happening is an interaction between the OS and another camera app, perhaps videoconferencing software which does like to mirror the image. If such an app is running simultaneously, there could be unexpected effects if Windows tries to share access. I know there have been changes to the camera system in recent windows updates that I haven’t fully checked out.
I’m glad you managed to use the alignment process to correct the mirroring (as you discovered so long as you pick the four points in the right order, it doesn’t matter how flipped the ‘raw’ image is. Proper alignment fixes everything) but it doesn’t explain why the image is mirrored in the first place.
It’s getting more bizarre by the minute. I opened the camera in VLC and yes, the image is mirrored there as well. I flipped it horizontally (mirrored it) and saved the setting and that was fine. But it of course was not a setting at OS level so it was still mirrored in Lightburn. I looked in device manager and no adjustable settings that I can see. I thought maybe the registry may hold the answer but it getting too deep for my liking and I decided to take a shortcut and restore the complete disk image from a week ago - i.e., before I ever installed RC5 or 6.
Let me emphasise, I’ve been using my Lightburn setup for a few years now so I’m quite confident this situation did not exist in the past. I;ve often sat watching the live view on that camera while the laser operated. However, after restoring (it’s a complete image remember, all partitions using Macrium Reflect) the image is still mirrored. That leaves me at a complete loss unless there is something stored in flash on the camera itself which had been changed.
I actually have two lightburn cameras, one directly above the center of the work area which I use for material placement, and the other towards the front/top of the laser enclosure to give me a different angle. Both cameras are the same (albeit with different focal length lenses). I only enabled/activated the material placement camera (the one that is now mirrored) during my experiments with RC5/6. The image from camera #2 is not mirrored but I did not check it until after restoring the disk image. I cannot think of any way now of changing settings on camera #1 so my only solution is to swap cameras and recalibrate (not trivial, they are both screwed to the top of the enclosure in their own brackets).
As puzzled by this as you are… Thanks for your help.
That is quite thorough work and nicely excludes many theories involving OS and app versions…
Oh don’t worry, I completely accept that it was working properly before, even though I cannot explain why it’s broken now. And it’s always the last thing we intentionally did that we logically blame.
If it’s the camera itself, that’s very interesting. And likely a hardware failure.
As far as I know cameras don’t have any (accessible) flash memory or options that can be set permanently. Loss of power is a complete reset. USB cameras are supposed to have “zero personality” and in fact don’t even have serial numbers.
I actually wish it was otherwise, and if we’ve discovered a method of storing data to the camera that would be a mighty achievement. But everything I know says that’s not possible without special proprietary APIs. If the camera does have a flash chip it’s not accessible to us in user mode. Many mass-produced cameras use ROMs.
At this point I wonder if a cosmic ray has flipped a bit in the camera’s firmware? Or the internal flash is degrading. Some kind of whacky hardware failure.
I unplugged the mirrored camera (Lightburn #1) and plugged it into another computer nearby. After it finished installing drivers I opened VLC and… yes, it’s still mirrored. So it’s the camera itself surely?I don’t know what’s happened to it - aliens firing cosmic rays at it perhaps - but it’s decided to live in an alternate universe now.
Before I start pulling stuff apart, do you know if it’s possible to exchange lenses on these lightburn cameras? I would need to swap the fisheye on the good one for the lens on #1
I’d say that proves the camera is the culprit. Definitely an odd failure mode, but you did say it had been doing strange things for a while.
It’s not too unlikely… the base firmware probably has a config block where the sensor read-out direction is defined, and if that got corrupted it would have this effect. So there really is a hardware-level “mirror flag” somewhere in the camera but it’s supposed to use the factory setting, not go rogue.
I think you might need a new one, sorry.
I would not swap lenses unless you want to do your own full lens calibration from now on, which you probably don’t. You might be lucky and it works as you expect, but also the presets might no longer apply. Probably don’t mess with the working camera if you can help it.
RC great. Again some useful news. I’ve been missing one little thing for a while. It would be useful to simply transfer the current Z position to the selected layer.
