16 Bit Patterns

[liquidguitars]

That is about 64 times the resolution

Thanks Jeff,

I not seeing any visual improvements , could be through STL? but it leads to a question regarding rendering rasters. Can you show us a difference between the old 8 bit and the new 16 bit format as a way to visually show us?

Patterns used to be 8-bit, even if you imported a 32-bit 4-channel image (3-colors + alpha) it got converted to 8-bit gray scale.

Just wondering " as I am still confused" why will a PNG 32 alpha automatically drop " 24 + 8 bit rendered " the background and a PNG 24 will not? this tells me Designer was always 24 bit freindly. Just wondering..

LG

[Jeff_Birt]

I got to thinking about this and realized I really goofed up part of my explanation . I'll try to get it right this time.

The pattern format in Designer used to be 8-bit. That is, the height of any particular point in a pattern was described by an 8-bit number. Presently the pattern format in Designer is 16-bit; the height of any particular point in a pattern is described by a 16-bit number.

All of the presently support image formats only have 8-bits of gray-scale data in them. Any type of color image is converted into an 8-bit gray-scale that is 'upgraded' to 16-bit internally. Since it started out as 8-bit originally, visually you probably won't see a benefit. Patterns that start out as 16-bit, those from the STL importer or those made/edited with PE will see the most benefit from this change (as an individual piece). It would be nice to have a 16-bit gray-scale import option in the future.

There were some cases where various arrangements of 8-bit patterns in Designer could cause some slightly visible artifacts in a carving. With 16-bit patterns a finer grained merging onto the board in Designer can take place so these artifacts are eliminated.

[Alan Malmstrom]

I have found that a grey scale image is 255 shades of grey. Your always going to see stepping with only 255 shades of grey especially when you increase the pattern depth. And when you import an image into Designer it automatically determines that the darkest color is 100 percent and the lightest color is 0 percent. Therefore it's a good idea to make sure that any image that a pattern is made out of covers the whole spectrum.

255 shades can also be explained as 8 bit. But even if you convert it to a 16 bit RGB image you still have the same 255 shades. That is unless you add a slight RGB noise to blend the greyscale in better. That's the only way I can see that a 16 bit image can be better than an 8 bit image.

[lynnfrwd]

Isn't it 256 including white and black?

[TerryT]

I think 0-255 = 256 shades.

[lynnfrwd]

Gotcha....

[bjbethke]

8-bit and 16-bit use in Photoshop, not sure if the CW unit uses the 16-bit, I think it works in the print mode?

[brdad]

It seems if the Z is always 1/128" (according to mtylerfl in another post), at a .5" carving depth, it seems there could only be 64 steps maximum. At 1/4", there could only be 32.

If that is the case, I can see how 16 bit would look better in Designer, but should not make any difference in the actual carving.

Is that correct?

[Jeff_Birt]

When you add a pattern to a board in Designer and set the depth/height etc. you are scaling the pattern in Z. With an 8 bit pattern this can lead to rounding errors that show up as jaggies. With a 16bit pattern you don't see this, it gives you much more freedom to manipulate a pattern, merge patterns on a board etc. The output resolution is determined by the machines capabilities but feeding it the best input resolution defiantly improves things.

Think of an 8bit pattern as a tape measure where the smallest markings are 1/4". A 16bit pattern has markings down to 1/32". Which would you rather use?

[brdad]

Think of an 8bit pattern as a tape measure where the smallest markings are 1/4". A 16bit pattern has markings down to 1/32". Which would you rather use?

I totally understand and have a tendency to over-measure and over-design and would use the 1/32". But if the saw only cuts in 1/2" increments, either one of those should produce similar results in the finished product despite looking better on paper.

I'm not saying you should not design with the best accuracy you can. But in the end the machine will only step in 1/128" depths. Just like a 20 megapixel picture is limited by the printed size and printer resolution when printed.

It would be interesting to see a comparison the actual output using two identical patterns, one being 8 bit and one being 16 bit. I'm thinking a pattern created in 16 bit and a copy converted to 8 bit would carve the same or very close (but the 16 bit would look much better in Designer).