Set up the Camera

The camera setup includes the hardware part for getting a decent view, and the software part for calculating the size and position of the subject.

Before starting, you need to get familiar with Live View Pane.

The pane shows up the realtime shots of the camera. There is a red cross helps you align somewhere in the view to the center of the camera by right-clicking the position. If the option Valid zone in the tab Manual of System Work Plat is checked, a green frame, which can be enlarged or shrunk by left-clicking and dragging on the sides or corners, shows up and gives you a smaller active area, helps avoid faulty matchings of similar geometries around the mark.

1. Hardware setup
   The various rings on the camera lens are already adjusted and fixed to allow the software to get a bright and sharp view in appropriate ambient light and software settings. If that is not the case or the laser has a new replacement camera or lens installed, please follow the steps below to set it up.

   NOTE

   There are still some software settings, which only affect the recognizability of the view, involved in the hardware setup.

   1. Set Contrast, Gain and Exposure to neutral
      Click Camera para and calibration in the tab Model Set of System Work Plat to bring up the dialog Camera param.

      
      

      Set Contrast to 0, Gain to 50 and Exposure to 50.

      NOTE

      Set these parameters to neutral leave some space for making some adjustments and getting proper views in different situations.

   2. Adjust the rings on the camera lens to get a bright and sharp view
      Put a piece of paper with some shapes or texts in the work area, move the camera on top of it.

      1. Adjust the aperture ring to get a moderately bright view.
      2. Adjust the zoom and focus rings according to your applications and get a sharp view.
      3. Lock up the rings.

   3. Set Rotate Angle and Mirror
      If the camera is not installed in its proper grip, you might need to set a rotate angle or set it to mirror or flip to get a proper profile.

      
      

      NOTE

      Do not use shapes like circles or squares which can not tell directions.

      NOTE

      If you made a mistake in installing the camera, it is better to correct it and leave these options untouched because rotating, mirroring or flipping the shots costs the software some time and slow down the whole process a little bit.

2. Software setup
   To look for and recognize the marks and guide the laser to cut, the software needs to be calibrated to know the correct size and position of the subject in the view.

   • Size calibration

     1. Put a piece of paper in the work area, move the laser head on top of it.

     2. In the dialog Camera param, set the laser power and speed for cutting, set the diameter and click Cut circle to cut a circle.

        
        

     3. Move the camera on top of the circle, right-click on the center of the circle to align it to the center of the camera view, and adjust the valid zone to bound the circle, then scroll up to zoom in and repeat the steps to align and bound the circle a little bit more accurate. Check the option Valid zone in the tab Manual of System Work Plat if the green frame does not show up.

        
        

     4. Read the size of the circle, e.g. 5.2mm in the picture above. If the read size is far from the real size, uncheck Ratio Calib, set the read size to GraphLen and click Calculate, then the software will do some calculation and show up the new size in Live View Pane. Otherwise, skip to the next step.

        
        

     5. Check and click Ratio Calib, a message box pops up and tells you the calculation is succeed, then the result shows up. Close the dialog to complete the calibration.

        
        

        If you use an old version RDCMarkVision which does not have an automatic calibrating function, enlarge or disable the valid zone, set the mark geometry according to the circle and click Match test to get the matching result, then set the read diameter to GraphLen and click Calculate to complete the calibration.

        
        

        
        

     NOTE

     Do not worry about whether the size calibration is 100% accurate, the matching tolerance will cover the error.

     IMPORTANT

     The subject appears in different sizes at different distances in the camera view, you need to do the size calibration every time you cut a material in different thickness, refer to Save and import the calibration results for more details, or move the working table up or down on the machine which supports it.

   • Position calibration

     1. Put a piece of paper in the work area, move the laser head on top of it.

     2. In the dialog Camera param, set the laser power and speed for cutting, set the size and click Cut cross to cut a cross.

        
        

     3. Move the camera on top of the cross, and right-click on the intersection of the cross to align it to the center of the camera view, then scroll up to zoom in and repeat the step to align the cross as accurate as you can.

        
        

     4. Click Calibration. The software will do some calculation and get to know the correct position of the subject in the machine coordinates.

     The accuracy of the position calibration is very important and is directly related to the cutting accuracy. But sometimes, it is hard to get it right in the way above, this is where the manual correction comes into rescue.

     
     

     IMPORTANT

     It is better to do a group of different tests to get the error in average because sometimes the error comes from not only the position calibration but also the matching.

     NOTE

     The position calibration has nothing to do with the material thickness, do NOT repeat it for different materials.

   • Save and import the calibration results
     It is a good habit to save the results as a backup after calibration, in case of a software or operating system crash.

     For the machines come with a fixed working table, you can save the results for different thicknesses, just import them back and you are good to go when cutting the corresponding material.