Centroid Community CNC Support Forum

Thought I better ask this before I experiment and an unscheduled incident happens.
I know what the grid digitize does and how it functions.
I find no explanation of what surface following does and how it works. Why? What? How?

hello.
not sure what you are asking but check out chapter 8 (page 67) is the Digitizing Chapter of the operator manual for more into on cnc digitizing.
http://www.centroidcnc.com/centroid_diy ... -v4.12.pdf

Been there done that. As I mentioned there is no info on surface following other than it is there.
In the grid window under the "type" field you have a choice of grid or surface following.
That is the question, what is it?

As far as I know, the 'Surface Following' option is going to follow the surface of the part and offset it - or do a radial type scan on the part - which is most likely NOT what you want.

As mentioned here in this thread: viewtopic.php?f=20&t=2373&start=20#p17282 You want to choose the Grid strategy and create a point cloud that is regular and rectangular. This is because most CAD software uses a simple import algorithm - usually with points collected in the X and incremented in the Y direction. The algorithm used for import needs to anticipate how the data is organized so that it can properly render the data. The nuts and bolts of this means that a human being has to anticipate how data will come in, then write code that will match things up...no software is inherently magic and point cloud import - if it even is an option in a particular CAD program, probably isn't given a whole lot of attention - so keep the data as simple as you can. Incidentally, you can also spend in the neighborhood of $15-20k on software that is very good at importing point clouds and wrapping them into meshes...Yearly maintenance fees on these types of programs will buy you a few of Centroid's best probes...EVERY year.

Centroid digitizing software and probes are touch probes.. not surface following probes. thanks, K

Might want to get that out of the menu so I don't ask non questions.
So...I take it surface following drags a probe along a surface?

yeah "surface following" typically refers to a probe that drags along the surface as it collects data..
so we have a poor choice of words in that sentence. "surface following" to centroid refers to our predictive digitizing algorithm that predicts surface slope and direction to save time while collecting points compared to old school grid digitizing that would pull back up to a Z clearance plane to then move xy before seeking the next point.. (which takes forever) ..so to make things better.. our digitizing stays relatively close to the object being digitized.. its fun to watch when it comes up against a new feature and see it figure out which way the object is going and then stay close to the surface... this speeds up grid digitizing time.

ahhhh, ok. I will have to try that.