Taper warp, laser tools

[StevenM (Steven Marston)]

@adammhaile (since you’re not accepting private messages at this time)

Warp tool questions

It’s on our list to make cylinder correction work for gantry machines, we’ve just had other things getting in the way (the dev team is still very small). As the one who implemented it for galvo I don’t think it will be that hard, I just need to get the time to implement it.

I need your help!

Could you please look at this thread and the one below where I’m imploring the addition of the location and width to the upcoming release of the Taper Wizard?

LIGHTBURN 1.5 Release

Regarding rhe taper module: Two values need to be added. First is how far down from the top is the design going to be placed. Even though it’s linear, it still alters the final outcome of the shape. The farther down it’s moved the narrower the top and the wider the bottom. If the top is moved down to the point to where the bottom previously was, the top width is now the same width. However, since the bottom of the design is also farther down it’s even wider. Secondly, adding an amount of wrap…

External Sites that point to the necessity of identifying proper location of the image during taper generation:

1. This one specifies a needed vertical location
   https://support.thunderlaserusa.com/portal/en/kb/articles/rotary-roller-diameter-calculation

2. This one specifies a needed vertical location in its calculation pdf. The spreadsheet that I’ve created was extracted from that pdf and uses placement and is found in one of the links above. Name: Rotary Taper Image Adjustment.ods.txt

Placing the object that’s been run through the current tape wizard creates a modified, to be engraved object. Place it on something short and it’s hardly noticeable that the taper is still not correct. But, suppose the object being engraved is a rather long item. Whole different outcome of the engraving as it’s moved downward. Let’s say the long object is 8" at the top and maybe 2" at the bottom… an oil filler funnel with a full length is 12". Now take that image placed at the larger end and move it towards the smaller end of the taper and it will wrap around upon itself if it’s a large image.

Yes you can shrink, spread, massage… whatever you need to do to get it to fit. But why? There’s formulae and calculations already established that take these parameters into account on the front end of their wizards. Others have incorporated them for a reason.

This new Taper Wizard in LightBurn is soooo close to being what’s been waited for, I’d hate to see it released “half-baked”.

I’m aware that this message will certainly tick folks off, but I’m one of those persons who had to go purchase external software (Silhouette Business Edition) just to get their functionality for their Taper Wizard. I’m suspecting others have as well. I don’t like purchasing things that I don’t need, but I did because of the above.
I could just keep on using SBE but I’m thinking about other following after us.

Warm Regards,
Steven

Also, see notes at bottom of this image