If a camera hangs firmly above the work area, the app shows its image to scale under your drawing. Put in an offcut, take a new camera image and drag the design onto the material in the image. The laser then burns it right there. Everything is in the menu Laser → Camera.
Align once
For the image to fit exactly, the app works out where the camera hangs, how much it looks at an angle and how strongly its lens distorts (wide-angle cameras show straight edges bent). Laser → Camera → Align camera … guides you through five steps:
- Camera: Choose the camera; the preview shows its image. The whole work area should be visible, with even light.
- Burn target: Lay cardboard or thin scrap wood over the area. The laser burns nine small crosses in a grid. Set the area of the marks, the power and the speed first; the start runs through the laser assistant like any job. If the crosses are already there (same area, no new homing since), choose Target already there.
- Photo: Move head out of view parks the laser so it hides no cross. Then Take photo.
- Marks: Click the crosses in the order shown, from front left to back right. A click nearby is enough: the app finds the centre of the cross itself. Points can be dragged, arrow keys nudge them.
- Check: The app shows the rectified photo with a circle wherever a cross should be, and the accuracy in millimetres. Below half a millimetre is very good. If a cross sits next to its circle, the order was usually mixed up.
Save alignment stores it in the machine profile, on every device with your account. Each device remembers the chosen camera itself.
Without homing, the controller counts from where the laser was switched on. Then always switch it on with the head at the front left, otherwise the camera image will be off later. If the camera is moved, align it again.
Using the camera image
- Update camera image takes a new image and lays it rectified under the drawing.
- Live camera image renews the image every second, for example while you shift the material.
- In the window Camera and alignment … you set the opacity, hide the image or align again.
The image is fixed in machine coordinates. With the start point Project zero point the laser burns exactly where the design sits in the image. Current position, on the other hand, moves the job to the laser head, and setting the zero point again in the laser assistant also moves the camera image on the canvas. The assistant points this out.
The image stays on this device only. Without a connection it lies where it was last.