Re: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] Re: digitizer from a mouse?

ballendo wrote:

> Fogassa,
>
> Yes, several have tried this and it has been discussed on this list
> at least a few times before... As Chris said, check the gorup
> archives at the website online
>
> The problem is simply that the mouse resolution is not typically high
> enough to be of value for any but the "crudest" of parts... So while
> it CAN (and has) been done, the result doesn't live up to the
> expectations.
>
> And to Yethdear, 12x12 tablet digitisers and table digitisers are
> still alive and well in many segments of industry, so ya can't be
> that old :-)
>
> Hopefully everyone understands that what fogassa (and both Smokes'
> and Chris's reply) is talking about is a digitising PROBE, and is
> different from the CAD digitising "puck" and board that Yethdear
> spoke of...

However, you could do some digitizing of 2-D shapes with one of these
pretty easily. You might mount a rod with a ball end to the puck, and
slide the ball over the part. These things can usually digitize several
hundred points a second, and some have pretty decent resolution and
accuracy. If you mounted the tablet on the same bench as the CNC
machine, and mounted to object to the machine's table, you could even
make the 2-D digitizer take "slices" of a 3-D surface by moving the
object orthogonal to the digitizer's plane. Hmmm, very interesting!
That way, you'd get some really nice stripes of 3-D points that might
make generating a toolpath easier, too.

My wife wouldn't let me bolt my kids to the Bridgeport so I can digitize
their faces, anyway, so it won't work for my portrait scupture studio
idea, but might be workable for other purposes.

Jon