I had a countertop fabricator come out today to template a job. The guy shows up w/ only a yellow briefcase and is ready to template the job. No luan, cardboard, plastic or anything else.
He put this black spotted tape on the walls, and on critical points on the cabs. Then he proceeded to lay out several 8×10″ black and white spotted plates in a sort of random pattern on the tops of the cabs. Finally, he takes several digital pictures of each plate and overviews of the whole thing. The field time was under an hour.
He tells me that some NASA engineers developed this system. From what I understood, the pictures are fed into a computer program that measures all of the necessary dimensions based on the spacing between his dotted tape and these dotted plates (my oversimplification). The developed drawing is then projected onto the stone and I assume a CNC saw does the rest.
I thought it was a really cool system, but I did request that they send me a hard copy of the drawing prior to fabrication, just so I could verify we both “saw” the same thing on site.
Anyone else ever see this setup? Good, bad, or otherwise?
http://fabchoice.com/phototop.html
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I read a brief article somewhere, might have been JLC 2-3 years ago. And it's like you say: random targets. Somehow they can convert it to a very accurate layout.
"Put your creed in your deed." Emerson
"When asked if you can do something, tell'em "Why certainly I can", then get busy and find a way to do it." T. Roosevelt
I saw such a system used a couple of years ago on both This Old House and Hometime.
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A-holes. Hey every group has to have one. And I have been elected to be the one. I should make that my tagline.
They've used the system on my jobs many times. Never had a problem. Kind of like GPS for your countertop.
I guess I am just behind the times. I think it has a lot of possibility.
I am glad to hear that others have successfully used this system, or at least their sub's have.
Thanks.
I have some granite tops going in Thursday that were "measured" this way. I'll let you know how it went.
Thanks. I'm interested to see how it goes.
Here's one on Templating
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Remodeling Contractor just outside the Glass City.
http://www.quittintime.com/
Calvin,
Thanks for sharing. I see that your project was done in 2004, now I really feel behind ;)
My guy didn't have a laptop or pointer. What I thought was interesting was the use of the photos for measuring. I assume that they are able to take multiple measurements comparing the size and space between the dots based on the known dia. of the dots. It just struck me as odd since I have had absolutely no luck in trying to accurately measure anything from a photo before.
I trust that it works. It just takes a while to get my head around something like that. Kinda like when I first started using digital cameras, I was worried that all the images would be lost on the memory card because I didn't have that physical roll of film.
First time I saw it was about a month ago, stair guy used it for double winder layout. Cut the stringers on a cnc. Stairs are in, look great. Please don't ask me how it works, I'm still stick ticking.