<< Click to Display Table of Contents > 

SAMLight Manual > Introduction > Overview

Overview
Previous pageReturn to chapter overviewNext page

Welcome to the SAMLight scanner application. This documentation describes the standard scanner application SAMLight. SAMLight is an application to control scan heads and lasers in order to do marking on different materials, to do 3D marking, welding, cutting and many more. The user interacts using the graphical user interface including dialogs and editors. The options Optic3D, SAM3D, Marking On The Fly, Flash, Client Control Interface, and MultiHead marking are also explained. In more detail:

1. Standard SAMLight functionality:

Standard features are marking of objects and entities either created in the SAMLight editor or loaded / imported using the Load or Import functionality. Standard objects and entities are:

Geometries like rectangle, ellipse, lines, points

Barcodes

Bitmaps

Serial Numbers

Date Time Objects

Motion Controllers

Control objects which are:

oSet Output Bits ( digital signals )

oDAC output ( analog signals )

oTimer

oWait for Input

oOverride Power / Frequency / Speed

oStart an executable

oMotion Control Objects

oMOTF Control Objects

Import / Export of various file formats ( Adobe Illustrator, DXF, etc... )

Mark Preview Window

Assign parameters like Speed, Frequency, Power, Laser Delays to Pens for marking

Additionally there are several marking modes, as:

Using external Trigger to start marking

Teach / Relocate Reference Points

Step / Repeat

Bitmap Marking

Marking On The Fly

Splitting modes: 1D, 1D MOTF, 2D, Angular, Bitmap Splitting

For Real Time entity manipulation there is a tool called Data Wizard. This tool can prepare entities to be grouped for hatching or to sort the marking order if these entities were imported using the Import functionality. The Data Wizard can hugely increase marking performance.

Create / Edit language resource files to adapt the SAMLight GUI to your language

Create custom fonts with the laser font converter

2. Optic3D Marking Functionality:

Load and generate 3D data. The marking focus will be shifted in Z-direction by an additional focal lens. This can be used for Deep Engraving and marking 3D surfaces. More details will be given in the chapter 'Option Optic3D'.

3. SAM3D Marking - Rapid Prototyping / Stereolithography:

Import / Export 3D data called STL or CLI files. The 3D will be done by slicing the source file then moving the marking target object in Z-direction with a motion device between marking the slices. This means the object is marked layer for layer. Possible features are Up- and Downskin Marking and Beam Compensation. More details will be given in the chapter 'Option SAM3D'.

4. Marking On The Fly:

This functionality will mark data on a target object that is constantly moving in X or Y direction ( in some cases it is also possible to deflect in X and Y direction simultaneously ). More details will be given in the chapter 'Option MOTF'.

5. Flash:

USC-2 cards can be run in Standalone Mode. Therefore they have to be connected via Ethernet Telnet Interface or RS232 plain ASCII terminal. This will allow to give commands to the USC-2 like Start Mark, Get Time, ... without an instance of SAMLight is running. It is also possible to access more than one scanner card from the PC. This is called MultiCard. More details will be given in the chapter 'Option Flash'.

6. Remote Control - Client Control Interface:

The Client Control Interface is based on ActiveX / COM calls sent to SAMLight from an external program on the same PC or even from an application on a different PC connected via Ethernet. The Client Control Interface supplies a huge amount of functions used to load, save, edit and mark the jobs in SAMLight and to work with all kinds of entities inside that job. More details will be given in the chapter 'Client Control Interface'.

7. Multiple Scanner Controller Cards:

It is possible to control more than one scanner card at the same time. Differentiate between MultiHead and Head2. In MultiHead up to six different Scanner Controller Cards can be controlled by one instance of SAMLight. Each scan head having its own working field in the View2D and its own laser source. Head2 is used for USC-2, RTC4 and RTC5 cards. Then a second scan head can be connected to the same card and will mark the same content as the primary head.