How to make a smooth line with simple trace?

General Discussion
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Hey guys,

Does anyone know how to go about making a smooth line with simple trace ? It seems that everytime I try to make a smooth line (by holding the button and moving the stylus) it comes out quite rough and erratic. Is there a way to fix or clean this up ?

Thanks for the insight !

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@Xtremist You really want a good template to physically trace around. I find 1/8” masonite works really well. Easy enough to shape. Bandsaw, saber saw, some sanding, and you have a rigid pattern to follow. You don’t want it to be too thick as your stylus will be off your intended line. Keep your eyes open for universal patterns. Metal washers of various sizes, coasters, drafting tools, (French curves, various templates). Cardboard has limitations…

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I find on on curves move in small increments and press the button each time instead of holding the button and trying to follow the shape.

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ok so there is no way to go and clean up the file after you have traced it ? the input needs to be accurate from the get go… thank you for the help

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Try with simple trace, using the stylus, choose starting point, press button on tablet, then move stylus to end of line, press button again…End simple trace, this will or should give a straight line … @Xtremist
Have fun !
MTW

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@Xtremist There isn’t anyway to “smooth” a curve in Simple Trace unfortunately. The processor on board just doesn’t have the Jam for that.

You can however save your file as a .dxf and move it onto you computer to be cleaned up there. Just push and hold the save button.
For point to point straight lines you can also turn on the Snap grid or the Angular constraints (red icons in the top left) this will make sure your lines are square to the machine and on uniform increments as you trace.

For free flowing curves…move a bit->click->move->click will usually yield better results than “Click and drag” unless like @BobD says you have a really solid template to trace against.

Cheers
AM

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Sorry to hijack the thread but…

Andrew on a tangential tracing topic: I’m wondering if you have any ideas kicking around for camera based tracing in the far future? I imagine that would be pretty heavy duty stuff for the arcdroid itself but there’s probably some ways to implement an attachment with processing in the camera module that does the machine vision type stuff. Stating this confidently while having absolutely no knowledge of the droid I/O of course.

Just ordered mine, really excited as this is the CNC solution I’ve been wanting for the better part of a decade!

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Hey @FDC

Yes camera based tracing is plausible but it ads a great deal of complexity and cost to the ArcDroid. And in fact in a lot of cases it can be less effective than the current method as the picture requires a LOT of processing in order to provide a usable output while clicking point to point is quite straight forward mathematically.

I’m not against the concept of auto tracing as a future upgrade but the current approach was just more robust and more cost effective so we went that way to begin with

Cheers
AM

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That makes sense, thanks for the insight!