Looking good!
As I try to move stuff over, I’m reminded about the parts of the layout that didn’t work so well. And as I think about tweaking them to make them work better, I’m finding it is hard to get everything to fit on the new table. I think I might have to start a lot of this over from scratch. I kind of cobbled together the original layout as I went.
For one, I may want to redesign the right ramp. Make it a bit sleeker and optimized for the space.
I also want to 3D print the ball guides on the sides and be less reliant on metal guides that I shape into place. One thing I’ve not figured out how to do is if you have a birds eye 2D view of the curve of an orbit, let’s say, how do you extrude that into a 3D print? In other words, if it’s not a perfect arc with a uniform radius, how to I go about plotting it on a CAD program so I can print it? (I hope that makes sense.)
Quoted from Nokoro:I also want to 3D print the ball guides on the sides and be less reliant on metal guides that I shape into place. One thing I’ve not figured out how to do is if you have a birds eye 2D view of the curve of an orbit, let’s say, how do you extrude that into a 3D print? In other words, if it’s not a perfect arc with a uniform radius, how to I go about plotting it on a CAD program so I can print it? (I hope that makes sense.)
I don't know which program you're using, but I think what you want is a spline. If there's no spline option, you may have to do a bunch of individual arcs but make them tangent to each other.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_spline
Quoted from toyotaboy:I don't know which program you're using, but I think what you want is a spline. If there's no spline option, you may have to do a bunch of individual arcs but make them tangent to each other.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_spline
Thanks. I’m familiar with the spline option, but how do you make it match, let’s say, a hand drawn, non-uniform arc? Do you just add a ton of points in the spline and make a measurement on the drawing for each point, and then between them all, you have a pretty good rough approximation?
Quoted from Nokoro:Thanks. I’m familiar with the spline option, but how do you make it match, let’s say, a hand drawn, non-uniform arc? Do you just add a ton of points in the spline and make a measurement on the drawing for each point, and then between them all, you have a pretty good rough approximation?
Again I don't know what software you're using, but in solidworks if I had an existing prototype or a sketch, I would scan what I have and texture map a playfield block that matches the same size, then you can just trace over the existing data.
That's what I did when Jay was trying to turn his rough prototype into CAD:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/lionman-custom-game#post-2799249
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/lionman-custom-game/page/2#post-2982308
Sorry. I’m using Onshape.
This idea of scanning a drawing and using that 2D drawing to make a sketch to extrude from is what I’m trying to figure out. I don’t have a scanner so that may be a big problem right there. Is there a way I can take a picture of a 2D drawing and somehow scale it to size to make a sketch that I can use in a CAD program like Onshape?
I think I see a way to do it in the program. I’ll have to play around with it when I have some time.
Quoted from Nokoro:Sorry. I’m using Onshape.
This idea of scanning a drawing and using that 2D drawing to make a sketch to extrude from is what I’m trying to figure out. I don’t have a scanner so that may be a big problem right there. Is there a way I can take a picture of a 2D drawing and somehow scale it to size to make a sketch that I can use in a CAD program like Onshape?
For something rough like a whitewood, you could probably get by just taking a single photo, but since it won't be perfectly perpendicular you will likely need to bring it into photoshop to skew it until it's straight, then scale the X/Y until it matches the correct proportions. If you don't have photoshop I believe you can still install CS2 (they stopped supporting server authentication). If you need help, send me a photo with dimensions and happy to clean it up.
Quoted from toyotaboy:For something rough like a whitewood, you could probably get by just taking a single photo, but since it won't be perfectly perpendicular you will likely need to bring it into photoshop to skew it until it's straight, then scale the X/Y until it matches the correct proportions. If you don't have photoshop I believe you can still install CS2 (they stopped supporting server authentication). If you need help, send me a photo with dimensions and happy to clean it up.
Awesome! Thanks very much.
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