Alignment Issues?

There have been a ton of “alignment” issues and questions on the groups and forums, so I’d like to add some perspective - no pun intended.

Picture 1 (below) is what you are “shown” on your dashboard. You “see” this because of the technology of the software and lens itself - a very wide angle "fish eye" lens. Basically think of it as being the opposite of zoom. In order to show you the entire bed, it has to distort the image to “appear” flat. 

The camera is actually seeing the perspective of the last 4 pictures, but in 360 degrees. (All photos taken with my phone from where the camera is positioned). Obviously the "pictures" are most accurate immediately under the camera. The accuracy becomes less and less accurate the further from the camera you get, in ratio. 

If you’re looking to align something small, put a small piece directly under the camera, and ensure you “set focus” and THEN place the design there. Run any projects immediately under the camera that you can. 

If you are using a large file that takes up a majority of the 12x19 bed, don’t align at the edges - align in the center ! Find the dead center of the board (make an x from one corner across to the next, and the same for the other two corners. Where they intersect is center)

Then find the dead center of the design in your software. Make a dot, and make it an alternate color. Align where that specific spot is over your pencil mark, and don’t worry if the edges appear to be off. “Ignore” that indexing operation so it doesn’t actually score or engrave it. Test this method until you lock in the process and feel comfortable hitting print!

If you’re relying solely on a camera 10 inches away, but only 4 inches above something to be accurate to within an 1/8” at its very edge, it won’t end well and those expectations are unreasonable.

Calibration helps it “guess” better as to what it thinks it’s seeing, but the software can only conquer the actual mechanical limitations of the technology so much. 

In order for the GF (or any laser) to have an overhead picture that’s perfect, it would need:

Single camera that took 4-6 photos at specific spots, and then stitched them together, or 4-6 cameras mounted in a way that they stitched the photos. All of these would drive up the cost of the unit exponentially- and comes with its own caveats. Like time. I had a laser that “stitched”. It still wasn’t perfect, and took much longer to create the image. Where the "seams" were caused more issues to me than the advantages. Seeing many overlaps on intricate designs was not ideal.

Many lasers do not even have a camera - most in fact. 

The camera is designed to supplement and be an advantage, but first we must understand how it works, what it does well, and what it doesn’t do well. Understanding that the far corner you see is coming from a lens with a very hard angle, that’s only a few inches above the material (further away from it angle wise, than it is from it height wise), hopefully helps explain why it’s “off”. It’s all about the vantage point and perspective of the lens that’s feeding you information.

The camera is not, and never was, designed or intended to align the most precise of things as far away from the camera as possible - and many are expecting it to. 

The camera is doing exactly what it should be doing. Hope this helps some of you !!