Alignment issues in the review image (?) Really hope you guys get that sorted before shipping.
Nice to see a GF (almost) in the wild…
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in fairness, i think that’s relatively uncommon, isn’t it?
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According to updates from the guys who did Codex Silenda… even super expensive giant lasers have some serious initial issues. And that is after he had a tech from the company come and help with setup.
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The engrave sections show points where the laser didn’t start or complete lines at the correct position, indicating that the timing of the passes has not been worked out yet. The score lines have dots on each end, again showing timing issues caused by the laser coming on before movement had begun. Finally, I tried the drawing and scanning mode only to find that the interpretation of the design did not line up perfectly — likely from the mapping of the fisheye lens on the camera. The good news is that these are all software problems that the team can fix while they are still building your unit.
I find this very worrying that the basics are not working properly so far down the line.
Is the fisheye lens problem solvable? I don’t see how a consumer grade lens will ever be accurate at the extremes. I can imagine you could compensate but it would be on a per lens basis. Perhaps they have to take a picture of an accurate grid as part of factory calibration but that can’t be rolled out afterwards. A wide angle lens that is pixel accurate over its entire field of view is surely a very expensive item. And how big are the pixels 10" from the centre?
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computer correction of lens distortion is, speaking in terms of the industry, relatively easy. lots of even pretty good lenses are actually engineered with the idea that aberrations will be corrected in software.
this isn’t to say that this company has or hasn’t fixed it, but just that it’s no sort of insurmountable objective.
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Well, I’m not so sure. Yes, theoretically, lens distortion correction is a mathematically straightforward process. Practically speaking, however, you face all sorts of imperfections, which when coupled with the very shallow light beam angles we’re dealing with, greatly magnify errors in calculations. The saving grace is that the Forge also has a head camera to help out. IMHO, that’s the only way we’re going to match or surpass the Muse’s 0.05" placement accuracy.
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i’m pretty sure. i think lens correction is a known quantity. that doesn’t mean that the lenses used here aren’t incontrovertibly flawed (i mean i hope not but i obviously can’t say one way or the other).
ya one hopes
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I am certain that I saw a statement long ago that the lens in the lid camera was an expensive custom component that was definitely not consumer grade.
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Yeah, but Brady is kind of new to all of this. Hard to tell how much of his issues were operator issues.
It’s been quiet on the Silenda front though.
I’ve got my fingers crossed too!
yes, we’re all just guessing here. Cheers to being pleasantly surprised! 
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Well… the stated accuracy anyway. How many videos or samples have we actually seen? Independent reviews?
I’m pretty sure that two production machines have to go head to head at the Nürburgring for a real comparison between the two.
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As @B_and_D_T said, I was asking Dan if the camera megapixel resolution was a limiting factor in being able to discern detail, and he replied that it is the lens, and that the lens was custom and very expensive.
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(This is the quote that comes to mind on this topic.)
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Dan’s reply to my question of camera resolution;
“5 megapixels, if memory serves - but as any photographer will tell you, the limit is the lens, not the sensor. It’s an extremely expensive, custom lens design to view that wide, from that close, and even then it can’t resolve across the entire bed at 5 megapixel resolution.”
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i’m not surprised; it seems like fully custom optics would be an expensive and labor intensive process.
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Yes, it’s a very specialized lens. And yes, we will be dramatically improving the lens accuracy via software.
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Actually I got an update email on Saturday 1/28( or friday?).
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Yeah, came out right after I posted my note 
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For an average hobbyist, perhaps. Lasers are just like any other computer or machine. Parts fail. Things need to be fixed. This particular issue happened to me the day before I made the comment… and it was about the 4th time it’s happened in 3 years at the shared maker space (where the lasers rarely rest). So, maybe rare for other people, but not me. 
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