@jmone3559 - Thank you very, very much for doing this short tutorial Nathan. Good timing, indeed. Quick question. I noticed a setting in the upper right corner called "Depth Scale". You have it set to 1. What is the range and what is this is parameter in relation to the Z Limit? I'm thinking the higher the contrast the better (from a depth or height map POV). Also, do you know what the "Simplification Factor" setting is doing?
I've got a 2.5D laser (live Z-Axis) that can take a STL (EZCad3) and engrave down with a (calibrated) layer height on 0.02mm on my setup. With a coin, that only gives me 15 layers if I want to only engrave 0.3mm (on each size). Any deeper and the coin starts to "thin out" too much. In playing with the settings in Vista sculpt, a setting of 1 for Depth Scale and 100 for Z Limit gives me a flat .3mm (ish) STL when scaled for a 40mm coin blank...ideal for my setup. If I leave the Z Limit at 1 (unconstrained) then the STL will be .6mm. If I increase the Depth Scale the height is increased with each step up. It I scale just the Z axis down to 0.3mm on such STL then all the details are just lost. One other way that could work (but I've not tried yet), is to have a higher STL --> more layers to engrave --> but lower the power on the laser to compensate (and it would take longer to engrave). Mmmm, I'll give that a go as well.
@@jmone3559 I see. For this use case we're working with two Epilog Fusion Pro 36 co2 lasers and 1 dedicated Shop Sabre 404 CNC. We have other equpment as well. We use all kinds of software from Adobe CC Suite to Vectric Aspire 12.0. Evrything is so manual right now so we're really searching closely for an automated approach and hoping this one or another package we're looking at will get us to the finish line. You're spot on about speed and efficiency though. TIme is money. Thanks man!
@@storytellerHDI just got the 3 month pro license. This software is amazing. I’m using it primarily for CNC and yes, it reduces the process down to the level of very simple to get a decent model from a 2D photo. It is NOT generating a depth map - it’s an actual mesh 3D model. While it still can require some tweaking for black parts of a photo - because it will make them deep - it seems to be able to figure out what is in the foreground, background, it keeps faces attached to bodies etc. I’ve found that increasing the depth range and finding the sweet spot for the Z limit gets me the best detail for my use cases, but I’m not doing flat surfaces like this. Try the 3 month pro license - $167…
@jmone3559 - Thank you very, very much for doing this short tutorial Nathan. Good timing, indeed. Quick question. I noticed a setting in the upper right corner called "Depth Scale". You have it set to 1. What is the range and what is this is parameter in relation to the Z Limit? I'm thinking the higher the contrast the better (from a depth or height map POV). Also, do you know what the "Simplification Factor" setting is doing?
I've got a 2.5D laser (live Z-Axis) that can take a STL (EZCad3) and engrave down with a (calibrated) layer height on 0.02mm on my setup. With a coin, that only gives me 15 layers if I want to only engrave 0.3mm (on each size). Any deeper and the coin starts to "thin out" too much. In playing with the settings in Vista sculpt, a setting of 1 for Depth Scale and 100 for Z Limit gives me a flat .3mm (ish) STL when scaled for a 40mm coin blank...ideal for my setup. If I leave the Z Limit at 1 (unconstrained) then the STL will be .6mm. If I increase the Depth Scale the height is increased with each step up. It I scale just the Z axis down to 0.3mm on such STL then all the details are just lost. One other way that could work (but I've not tried yet), is to have a higher STL --> more layers to engrave --> but lower the power on the laser to compensate (and it would take longer to engrave). Mmmm, I'll give that a go as well.
...or increase Speed!
@@jmone3559 I see. For this use case we're working with two Epilog Fusion Pro 36 co2 lasers and 1 dedicated Shop Sabre 404 CNC. We have other equpment as well. We use all kinds of software from Adobe CC Suite to Vectric Aspire 12.0. Evrything is so manual right now so we're really searching closely for an automated approach and hoping this one or another package we're looking at will get us to the finish line. You're spot on about speed and efficiency though. TIme is money. Thanks man!
@@storytellerHDI just got the 3 month pro license. This software is amazing. I’m using it primarily for CNC and yes, it reduces the process down to the level of very simple to get a decent model from a 2D photo. It is NOT generating a depth map - it’s an actual mesh 3D model. While it still can require some tweaking for black parts of a photo - because it will make them deep - it seems to be able to figure out what is in the foreground, background, it keeps faces attached to bodies etc.
I’ve found that increasing the depth range and finding the sweet spot for the Z limit gets me the best detail for my use cases, but I’m not doing flat surfaces like this. Try the 3 month pro license - $167…
@@MachinedInWood That's good insight. Thank you. Yeah, I think we'll give the Pro software a try.