I was able to get the speed constant. I just divided the polyline I created from your gcode evenly in Draftsight & extracted those points to a file. I was able to generate all the single frames, but photoshop CS6 which I was using to create the animation did not like that many frames for some reason. I was using about 3113 frames. The original was using 1025 frames. Do you know a good free video editor that will take single PNG images and create a video file?
I havenât done that in a while, but I used to have some magic command line arguments for ffmpeg. You could define the string format like image%06.png and it would find them all.
With your comment, I was able to find this thread that gives good examples of the command line to use for ffmpeg. I will regenerate the frames this week & give that a try.
https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/68770/converting-png-frames-to-video-at-1-fps
Yeah, something like that. I remember it being buggy, and printing errors, but making a video anyways.
There werenât any decent screen recorder tools that I found, so when making a demo of my GUIs, I would always dump out the display buffer to ppm at a set rate and then use that to make a movie to show people what the GUI looked like.
Now, I just use simplescreenrecorder and it just works a whole lot better.
Before I put this on youtube, see if this one looks more reasonable. It is about 2mm distance between each point & about 3.5 minutes long versus the 34 second previous version.
The command line I used was: ffmpeg -r 15 -i frame%5d.png -pix_fmt yuv420p -r 15 output.mp4
I then used photoshop to add the audio. I will have to see if I can add the audio with ffmpeg also. The ffmpeg is a lot faster process than I was using with photoshop. Thanks for info on that program.
http://www.zewind.com/Zen_XY_Size_Rev42_Audio.mp4
(Uploaded this to youtube, see message below)
That looks more like it. At least itâs not about to hit orbit in those last few cycles. at 2mm/frame and 15 frames/s, thatâs 30mm/s speed. It seems like itâs really slow when watching the video because itâs only 3"x3" on my monitor, but on the real thing, I doubt youâd want to go that fast. In terms of a simulation though, it seems very accurate, and it is very cool.
I wonder what we could do with the speed that would make the waves more interesting. Maybe something like the speed is proportional to one dimension, like X, so that when it was on the left, it would be going slower, and on the right, it would go faster? Then the waves would have a changing âfocal pointâ. IDK, when you get closer to having a prototype, we should look for easy things to implement like that. Speed changing in time, or by the location on the board, or something. It may not matter too much since the waves will travel so much faster than the ball.
The animation is cool and the idea of the water table is interesting too. Thanks.
I am still pondering whether to build the water table or not. I do not have the extra funds to play with actually making that yet. I did have another thought on the water table with having a little ski boat pulling a skier around the water using the steel ball in the bottom of the boat still. That might be a little more interesting than just having the boat.
Oh now you have to do that, come on.
How did we not think of attaching things to go on the ball?!? That could level up the ZenXY for sure. I might have to play with this later.
I deleted the previous video on youtube & added an updated video showing more realistic movement between points after Jeffeb3 pointed this out. I created the frames at 1280x1024 so you should be able to see pretty good detail if you want. I kept the original youtube video that did not have the audio for comparison on the speed difference.
The audio is from Streams of Pisgah National Forest Pisgah I recorded. Links to this audio collection can be found: http://www.zewind.com/audio.htm
I used ffmpeg to create the video after Jeffeb3 pointed me to that program. I was originally using photoshop CS6 which was a lot slower to process the files. I think it took maybe a minute to create the video & and just a few seconds to add the audio.
This is the command lines I used to create the video from the 3113 .png files generated from openscad
ffmpeg -r 15 -i frame%5d.png -pix_fmt yuv420p -r 15 Out1280x1024.mp4
I then got the length of the video & cut the audio to the same length & added Audio to the mp4 file with this command line.
ffmpeg -i Out1280x1024.mp4 -i AveryCreek_3_27_07.mp3 -codec copy -shortest Out1280x1024_Audio256.mp4
Here is the link to the ffmpeg program:
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I replaced the youtube video so the speed was the same between each point since Jeffeb3 pointed this out.
I used ffmpeg to create the video after Jeffeb3 pointed me to that program. I was originally using photoshop CS6 which was a lot slower to process the files. ffmpeg took about a minute to create the video & only a few seconds to add the audio to that. The audio I edited using audacity and added a 3 second fade in & fade out to the beginning and end of the track.
This is the command lines I used to create the video from the 3113 .png files generated from openscad
ffmpeg -r 15 -i frame%5d.png -pix_fmt yuv420p -r 15 Out1280x1024.mp4
I then got the length of the video & cut the audio to the same length & added Audio to the mp4 file with this command line.
ffmpeg -i Out1280x1024.mp4 -i AveryCreek_3_27_07.mp3 -codec copy -shortest Out1280x1024_Audio256.mp4
Here is a link to the ffmpeg program:
Here is the link to the audacity program:
The audio is from Streams of Pisgah National Forest Pisgah I recorded. Links to this audio collection can be found:
Here is another idea to throw at you. I was talking to a friend of mine about this idea this morning & he had the idea of having an aquarium with fish in it & the boat pulling the skier along the bottom instead of on the top. He says you can get sand that will stay on the bottom of the water and different colors. Another thought would be to have the steel ball create a pattern in the sand on the bottom of an aquarium. I have a couple of questions about this.
- Would the steel ball have an chance of rusting since they are chrome plated?
- How thick can the bottom of the aquarium be or what is the maximum distance between the magnet & steel ball to still be affective in moving it?
aquariums are heavy. Would you be able to support the weight and still have the ZXY in there? I suppose you could make it smaller than the area of the bottom, and fit it inside⌠The other problem is that fish like stuff in the aquarium.
- I think so, but only if it has a crack in the surface. Maybe you could get a stainless one, or dippit in epoxy.
- I think 1/4-1/2" is about the max from the ball to the magnet. Larger than that, and youâll get it skipping around instead of moving smoothly.
If you do something like this, let me know, and Iâll make a fish shape in sandify. Or should it be a shark? 
I found these 35 3/8"L x 16 3/4" W x 5 7/8"H underbed plastic boxes for $9.57 in Walmart which seem like they might be good for what I am thinking. They also have 23 1/2" x 16 7/8" x 5 7/8" H boxes for $4.38. Probably would need to add a thin layer of something under it to give it a little more support.
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Just throwing this out there, a stainless ball bearing wonât be attracted to a magnet.
Thanks for the clarification, but it is my understanding there are different grades of stainless steel & some do have magnetic properties. I bought some stainless steel knives at Samâs club a year or so ago. When I got home put a magnet to them & the magnet stuck pretty good, so immediately took them back. I am no expert on this matter, but here is a webpage I found describing stainless steel grades.
https://www.azom.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=2873
I let this ZenXY idea go & decided not to build one for now.