Simplifying Alignment Markers for camera setup

It doesn’t have to be a single piece. Press the ‘Frame’ button to figure out where the corners are, and put a small coaster-sized piece of the same thickness, large enough to contain the target mark, at each of those corners. I’ve done this many times when calibrating large machines.

If your camera is mounted upside down or sideways, the numbers are absolutely necessary - you need to know the correct order to tag the markers in. The software tells you to tag them in numbered order and prompts you for each number, yet we still have people tagging them in the wrong order, and the result is that the corrected image is backwards.

Again, louder for those of you not reading, everything in the marker pattern is there for a reason - we went through many iterations of this. While I’m sure there’s room to improve, what’s there now is markedly better (and results in fewer support tickets) than the changes you’re suggesting.

The numbers don’t need to be physically burned. Just in the instructions for alignment, say “Click the crosshairs in the following order” and a graphic for “1->2, 3<-4”

The software tells you to tag them in numbered order and prompts you for each number, yet we still have people tagging them in the wrong order, and the result is that the corrected image is backwards.

LOL I’m not sure if you’re making your point, or mine. Your instructions are clear and on-point. Some people are going to tag them in the wrong order regardless of whether numbers are burned onto the target material or not. Fortunately, this doesn’t damage the laser or anything, they’re just going to get a reversed image. Also, simple code solution is that 2 and 3 must be to the right of 1 and 4, and 1 and 2 need to be above 3 and 4, or the alignment wizard tells you there’s a problem and prompts you to try again and there’s never a reversed image situation.

See, I’m bonking around playing with mounting solutions or making changes to the lid and need to reshoot the alignment periodically. In fact I’m wanting to recommend that users needing high accuracy just shoot the align pattern before they begin. It’s so much better than trying to dink around with the offset and scale under Camera Control- I’d like to make that go away entirely.

The thing is, the alignment pattern takes minutes to burn and doesn’t burn correctly for me because it lacks separate power for the raster and vector portions…

Literally all I need is 4 crosshairs, which could be a MUCH smaller raster of a fiducial with no vector. But honestly, the 16MP camera’s great, I can pretty much see a vector line if the light is right, so all I need is 4 vector crosshairs and they only need to be like 10mm wide. If they’re not prominent enough, take the lens like 1/4" out of focus and the lines fatten up and show up really well.

If you mount the camera upside down (which many do for cable routing) the markers are reversed. I already detect and error out on winding order (for example, if you click 1, 3, 2, 4 I can tell they aren’t clockwise), but the alignment routine will properly correct a mirrored, sideways, or upside down image, and to do that I need actually numbered targets, tagged in numeric order.

You have a 16mp camera which resolves a single vector line just fine. Some people use a 720p camera, which doesn’t, so the raster fill gives more to work with.

And I gave you all the information you need above to produce this yourself.

I hate to be the one to break this to you, but what you need for your specific machine is not necessarily what everyone else needs. :slight_smile: I have to accommodate all the different and wildly varying hardware we handle.

Having said that, I’ve added a 2nd setting for the camera markers, so the line and fill parts now have separate settings.

Hmmm… my apologies, I see that’s true. I can just burn a 180mm x my scale square pattern on my own, then run the Alignment Wizard, enter that scaler, skip the wizard burn entirely and do the 4 clicks. OK, that groks now!

I actually totally get that. I didn’t think of a flipped camera, but I did think of a 720P camera that can’t see vector lines normally, but could if it was defocused. One thing of note- IF the camera can’t see vector burns, there’s little point in the vectors being in the fiducial pattern, right? If the camera CAN see vectors, it doesn’t need the raster of the fiducial, just crosshairs.

But anyhow, you’re right, you’ve answered the question. I can a 180mm x scale burn of anything and skip the alignment wizard burn.

Just make sure the marks are centered on the page (select all four, press ‘P’ to center to page), but yes - the 180mm x Scale corners works fine.

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