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Category: mapping – Page 46

Texture Map GCode Directly In Blender With NozzleBoss

We’ve seen this funky dual disk polar printer already recently, but [Heinz Loepmeier] has been busy working on it, so here’s an update. The primary focus here is nozzleboss, a blender plugin which enables the surface textures of already sliced objects to be manipulated. The idea is to read in the gcode for the object, and convert it to an internal mesh representation that blender needs in order to function. From there the desired textures can be applied to the surfaces for subsequent stages to operate upon. One trick that nozzleboss can do is to create weight maps to tweak the extrusion flow rate or print velocity value according to the pixel value at the surface — such ‘velocity painting’ can produce some very subtle surface effects on previously featureless faces. Another

trick is to use the same weight maps and simply map colours to blender text blocks which are injected into the gcode at export time. These gcode blocks can be used swap tool heads or extruders, enabling blending of multiple filament colours or types in the same object.

Some nice examples of such printing manipulation can be seen on [Heinz’s] instagram page for the project. So, going back to the hardware again, the first video embedded below shows the ‘dual disk polar printer’ fitted with a crazy five-extruders-into-one-nozzle mixing hotend setup, which should be capable of full CMYK colour mixing and some. The second video below shows an interesting by-product of the wide horizontal motion range of the machine, that the whole printing area can be shifted to a nozzle at the other end of the gantry. This enables a novel way to switch extruders, by just moving the whole bed and print under the nozzle of interest! One final observation — is that of the print surface — it does look rather like they’re printing direct onto a slab of marble, which I think is the first time we’ve seen that.

Interesting printer designs are being worked on a lot these days, here’s a really nice 5-axis prusa i3 hack, and if you want to stay in the cartesian world, but your desktop machine is just too small, then you can always supersize it.

Mapping how the 100 billion cells in the brain all fit together is the brave new world of neuroscience

These steps are repeated for each cell type, creating a richer and more complete map of the brain with each run-through.

Working together to build a brain map

Scientists now have the tools to examine the entire brain in very fine detail. There has been considerable effort to coordinate and pool data from brain mapping research labs to create comprehensive brain maps. For example, the U.S. BRAIN Initiative created the BRAIN Initiative Cell Census Network (BICCN) in which my lab participates. Collaborating research groups in the network recently released the most comprehensive map of cell types in the brain’s motor cortex across humans, monkeys and mice.

What’s On The Other Side Of A Black Hole?

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Normal maps are useless inside black holes. At the event horizon — the ultimate point of no return as you approach a black hole — time and space themselves change their character. We need new coordinate systems to trace paths into the black hole interior. But the maps we draw using those coordinates reveal something unexpected — they don’t simply end inside the black hole, but continue beyond. In these maps, black holes become wormholes, and new universes lie on the other side.

Hosted by Matt O’Dowd.

Continue reading “What’s On The Other Side Of A Black Hole?” | >

Emesent launches Hovermap ST autonomous drone LiDAR mapping and surveying payload

Autonomous drone mapping startup Emesent has announced its latest survey-grade LiDAR payload: Hovermap ST. The lightweight, IP65-rated solution is being launched with Emesent’s new Automated Ground Control feature that, the company stresses, enables autonomous data capture in harsher environments than ever and for a wider range of use cases.

Emesent’s LiDAR payloads leverage a process called simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM), in which a drone builds a map and, at the same time, localizes the drone in that map.

New model may improve Bay Area seismic hazard maps

The Santa Cruz Mountains define the geography of the Bay Area south of San Francisco, protecting the peninsula from the Pacific Ocean’s cold marine layer and forming the region’s notorious microclimates. The range also represents the perils of living in Silicon Valley: earthquakes along the San Andreas fault.

In bursts that last seconds to minutes, earthquakes have moved the region’s surface meters at a time. But researchers have never been able to reconcile the quick release of the Earth’s stress and the bending of the Earth’s crust over years with the formation of mountain ranges over millions of years. Now, by combining geological, geophysical, geochemical and , geologists have created a 3D tectonic model that resolves these timescales.

The research, which appears in Science Advances Feb. 25, reveals that more mountain building happens in the period between along the San Andreas Fault, rather than during the quakes themselves. The findings may be used to improve local seismic hazard maps.

Scientists invent imaging method to assess quality of 3D-printed metal parts

Scientists from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore), have developed a fast and low-cost imaging method that can analyze the structure of 3D-printed metal parts and offer insights into the quality of the material.

Most 3D-printed metal alloys consist of a myriad of microscopic crystals, which differ in shape, size, and atomic lattice orientation. By mapping out this information, scientists and engineers can infer the alloy’s properties, such as strength and toughness. This is similar to looking at wood grain, where wood is strongest when the grain is continuous in the same direction.

This new made-in-NTU technology could benefit, for example, the aerospace sector, where low-cost, rapid assessment of mission critical parts—turbine, fan blades and other components—could be a gamechanger for the maintenance, repair and overhaul industry.

“A Genealogy for All of Humanity” — University of Oxford Researchers Create Largest Ever Human Family Tree

Researchers from the University of Oxford’s Big Data Institute have taken a major step towards mapping the entirety of genetic relationships among humans: a single genealogy that traces the ancestry of all of us. The study has been published today in Science.