Pen Settings > Pen Advanced

At the marking process, the grayscale value of the bitmap corresponds to the laser power. Due to non-linearities of the laser source and of material behaviour, the laser power needs to be adjusted for each grayscale value to get the desired marking result of the bitmap. The grayscale values of the scanner bitmap can be adjusted via two different pixel maps: the Pen PixelMap and the System PixelMap.

Scanner Bitmap

(entity property)

The bitmap grayscale values will first be adjusted by the Pen PixelMap and afterwards by the System PixelMap:

•Pen PixelMap (useful to consider material behaviour)
Before marking, every grayscale bitmap which is assigned to this pen will be changed by this pixel map.

•System PixelMap (useful to consider laser properties like minimum power and non-linearities)
Before marking, every grayscale bitmap will be changed by this pixel map.

•Power Map is not used for grayscale marking at all.

Pen PixelMap

(pen property)

System PixelMap

(global setting)

Laser

(PWM or AM)

Table 20: Order of grayscale adjustment

system_pixel_map

Figure 138: System PixelMap Dialog

The global System PixelMap is a function which adjusts grayscale values. This means each grayscale value of each bitmap is mapped to an output value. The grayscale values of bitmaps are already adjusted by the Pen PixelMap before they are mapped again by this System PixelMap.

•The Pen PixelMap can be used to optimize the bitmap output for different materials.

•The System PixelMap can be used to compensate general laser non-linearities. In addition, many laser sources should not be switched off completely for white pixels but needs a minimum laser power for fast switching between power levels. For further information, refer to Table 20.

DynamicPixelmap

Figure 139: Dynamic System PixelMap Dialog

The new System Pixel Map and the mode of interpolation is activated via Settings → System → Extras → Enable Dynamic Grayscale Map. Up to 255 individual interpolation points can be set by clicking on the line in the input-output view or by Insert Point. Points can be changed by editing the values in the table or by dragging the red boxes in the input-output view.

This system pixel map applies a new gray value to gray scale bitmaps according to the linear, cubic or Hermite interpolated input-output values in the table of Points.

It is possible to save the points to a *.txt file and load the points from a *.txt file.