Perhaps illusion isn’t the right word. Real depth is possible as seen in the medallion. I have done that with my basket weave and Celtic weaviings. One way to suggest depth is to vary the black left on the surface of the resultant engrave. That they scrubbed the medallion shows that it is true depth, measurable with a micrometer or calipers, true 3D. It seems that with photos a lot of the discussion is to how to use darker engraving surface to show contour that is an illusion of depth and really 2D. In the end you are working with gradients, but there are other processes at work in terms of power, speed and number of passes.
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Yes indeed. Alternating lines would be a test of just LPI. DPI depends on how fast the beam can switch relative to how fast the head moves. It is still limited by the spot size and wavelength.
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I used to think that following this program was trolling but it seems from subsequent replies to your post that I’m mistaken. But I do agree with you regardless of what label is put on it. I swear there’s an auto-generate-a-post program running:
10 Post “I was conned” message (or variant)
20 Post “We were intentionally deceived” message
30 Post “Dan knew what he was saying wasn’t true” (refrain from directly calling him a liar to prevent a flag but say it anyway)
40 Post “It can’t possibly do what they said it would do”
50 Post Engineering analysis defending “It can’t do it” post
60 Ask “When will it do what you said?”
70 Get answer
80 Don’t accept answer (see 40 above)
90 Ask “When will it ship?”
100 Get Answer
110 Don’t accept answer
120 Post innocuous possibly helpful but benign message
130 Goto 10
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oh sweet more of this pretentious judging
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Not judging, just expressing my opinion. Just as valid as any generated by the above program or any other poster. Everyone is welcome to their opinion. And everyone is welcome to ignore mine. Sometimes repetition helps with communication and sometimes it hinders it.
Pretentious would be pretending that mine were more valuable than any others. That’s a determination that needs to be made by the reader.
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3D engraving does not correlate to the depth of the engraving.
Vector objects can be engraved with varying settings to achieve varying results in the depth of the individual engraves. (typically slower speeds, higher power and LPI produce deeper engraves and faster speeds, lower power and LPI produce shallower engraves)
The thing that makes a 2D engrave is that the settings are constant over the entire object.
A 3D engrave happens when the settings vary on the fly within the same object based on the varying colors within that object (like a photo).
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Ah! OK. Vectors and bitmaps are handled differently. What you want to do is use vectors to design your 3D engraving. Then, when you’re ready to engrave, rasterize it. Set a slow, 100% power, 340 or higher LPI engrave, and experiment from there.
Note this is not recommended or supported right now and can cause all sorts of mayhem depending on materials and such. Watch carefully, and use all cautions for using non-Proofgrade materials and settings.
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Thanks for the insight on this. @Tom_A not the only one a bit confused. I am hoping it becomes clear when my GF is here.
LOL, that lawyer must be sitting at your elbows now 
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THIS may be what I’m looking for! I’ll love to try this as soon as I have time. (Gosh I hope that’s tonight!)
Understood!
Thanks!!
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Bookmarked!
It’s just a difference in speed and power. That’s the only thing that sets them apart. 3d engrave is generally full power and a lot slower than a normal grayscale engrave. That’s why there will be a different menu option for it.
It has nothing to do with the contents of the bitmap used other than darkness = depth.
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You’ve correctly pointed out that spot size and spatial resolution are different. The spatial resolution is almost an order of magnitude higher than the spot size.
In practice, as an example, the thinnest diagonal line you can raster is 0.005", but the “jaggies” (visible pixelation) are an order of magnitude smaller than the thickness.
I’m assuming for this example, by the way, that the horizontal and vertical spatial resolution are equal, which is not true - the horizontal resolution depends on the head speed.
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So at some point along the power chain you are being limited by your ability to switch power output. Is there going to be a graph somewhere that tells us at what point we aren’t using 1000dpi(horizontally) anymore. Or could you tell use the maximum switching speed between power levels so that we can extrapolate that ourselves?
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This is something that, believe it or not, we’ll be improving in software as well - so I’m going to hold off on sharing the current numbers.
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See, and that’s exactly the kind of thing that wasn’t at all mentioned in documentation, and exactly the kind of thing I wanted to know. It makes perfect sense now that it’s been explained to me. But from my POV I’d say it’s not at all the kind of thing that is naturally obvious to a complete laser novice.
I think your explanation there really sums it up nicely for me. I’m excited to test when I get a chance!
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Since 3D engraving is unsupported, it’s by-design that a total novice couldn’t figure out how to do it from the documentation yet.
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My opinion on that is I would have liked to see “We’ve given you the 3D Engrave option to take the guesswork completely out of it when using Proofgrade materials. However, if you’d like to take a manual approach or use non-Proofgrade materials, here’s a good place to start…, but you’ll need to experiment on your own to try and achieve good results.”
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Yes. We’ve decided not to give half-directions on things that might not work out, but instead to put that effort into documenting and supporting fully things that we feel confident we can make great. For the rest, we have the forum. I learn things here too.
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I can understand that, I suppose. Still, I would have preferred something documented.
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You and me both. Sometimes it is a challenge to dig out all the information, but remember this post from way back? I finally came to the same conclusions about power and speed settings with @takitus. We have so needed to collate all this information.
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