Hey.
I do a bit bit of lasering in TouchDesigner and I try to display 3D objects.
The current workflow that im using is rendering 3d scene and then Trace SOP, which It is terrible because it eats a lot of CPU memory and looks awfully distorted. Therefore I am trying to achieve it with POPs. The problem is that I don’t want to draw each line of a model beacuse it is too much to project for the laser. I need a line interpretation of that model. To have only most important lines that define the structure of the model. I’ve been trying something with delete POP but the results are to random.
I tried to make obj, where I delete lines in between but the results are too random.
I know it is a tough one, but maybe someone would have some advice at least where to start. Maybe it needs to be done before Touchdesigner.
If you have it as a TOP image somewhere in your project try using a Polygonize POP. Try it with the jellybean example that touch designer opens with. Then play with threshold. I was surprised how easily it made outlines….
Hope this helps.
Thanks a lot. I was not planning using TOPs but this method looks the most promising. I saw this operator when I tried to make a POP out of a TOP, but I don’t know why I haven’t tried it. I will check it tomorrow with the actual laser and osciloscope.
Ok good luck!
Unfortunately, it doesn’t work as we hoped. It looks nice in TouchDesigner, but when putting it on the laser, it reveals a flow of a poligonize operator. It generates points densly but the order of them doesn’t make the line. When putting it into a laser chop, it treats it as a slicer. I visualise the problem on this video and compare it with the result of Trace SOP https://drive.google.com/file/d/1teT7QhzHHq98_lbBWBkRhAFut1OK_YKR/view?usp=sharing
so right now I need sth that make a strip line of those points. Something that connects all the closest points.
Oh it can never be easy, can it! I don’t have direct laser experience with TouchDesigner but just thinking outloud, what if you converted to TOPS then used some feedback or cache delays on the trace to average a few frames and then combine them, would that smooth out the trace effect maybe?
I know there are lots of folks with laser experience, so they might have better suggestions.
Hope this helps.
Hello,
Just wanted to comment on that specific point, it’s on our list to have an option for the polygonize POP to output line strips and eventually a more generic functionality to convert adjacent lines to line strips, which would help in your case.
Otherwise depending on your setup some people have been using the Trace POP in a tox loaded with the touch engine to offload the CPU processing to another CPU thread.
Best,
Vincent
Hey Vincent,
Thank you for your comment. I’ll be looking forward to this update 
There’s an inherent problem with lasers as physical devices. To keep it brief, you generally won’t get decent, smooth graphics above 500 points. It’s a physical issue, not a software one. You can achieve smooth and sharp graphics while keeping this limitation in mind, or alternatively, by adding more laser projectors and distributing the graphics signal. In your example, you’re showing a 3D car model in transparent wireframe mode. You can remove lines if the black is opaque, preventing the hidden lines from showing through (I assume you’re aiming for the opposite effect). You can also remove the lights and think of the graphic as a 2D model (even if you animate it in 3D). As others have mentioned, at this point, I think the most viable option for you would be to switch to Top-Stop-Chop. With Top-Stop, you can use thresholds or levels to differentiate lines and fine-tune the image.