AbeAnd Log
Abe's OSE Google Drive Folder Abe's OSE Google Calendar Syncthing ID: IRALYQS-GZKNGUO-LNQNXWL-ESKLSLZ-GIENKHQ-AVCYDQ5-QNTETCG-42SNFQ7
Fri Apr 21, 2017
Progress animating short idler despite learning the hard way. After looking at Laszlo's file as suggested by Marcin I realized I was making things more difficult for myself editing my files more from scratch individually. It was still easier to move the remaining parts into my file though. I now have everything except the belt added.
Thurs Apr 20, 2017
I think I am close to getting the short idler on, but it keeps challenging me with little mistakes in the details. I have tried replicating the part fusion seen in the example, but I am uncertain how to make it work with the solid verse shell options. Looking at previous work is the most informative, but not always easy to see how to replicate if not all changes made are obvious. Maybe I need to start with more primitive parts and put them together from scratch, but that seems like a waste of time. So far trying to use existing assemblies has been less compatible or easy to manage when copying/importing though.
I keep recording examples to log my failures as much as success for troubleshooting.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaSkjoHA0rn97JQUQJwa2pg/videos
Wed Apr 19, 2017
Some progress just getting the short idler assembly together with the whole previous carriage assembly and rods. The problem has been keeping parts together with constraints. Unification and fusing did not work for me and I need to maintain the look of the previous assembly and completeness relative to previous scripts and animations. Just keeping all the bolts, nuts, and other parts in already finished components while moving and animating ahs been difficult, but I am unfamiliar with many of the details and sub-functions in FreeCAD. I am concerned about the chain, but I see other documentation on how to work with segmented parts. Some my constraint issues could also be bugs, but look to me like excessive numbers of parts with conflicting uses.
I repeated recordings better of the first animations a little smoother again to after the screen recording issue.
Mon Apr 17, 2017
Progress on adding idler, but some learning curve with importing/copying and managing parts easily. FreeCAD sub functions for the Union of shells of the plastic clams has been eluding me so far. Moving forward with the quickest methods I know with constraints has been erratic and hard to move and display ideally. So I am doing it more manually like the carriage.
Preparing for meeting.
Decided to try uploading some video to YT. Discovered Ubuntu switched my default screen so I was recording the wrong screen for some of my work. I switched it in vokoscreen from 1 to 2, but ubuntu seems to have then decided the 2nd screen is the default 1. Very confused how to control this at the moment. Two screens is occasionally nice for FreeCAD work, but Ubuntu's management of them is not ideal. Looks like I have to re-record some of my animation shots as well and I have to go through a lot of clips and figure out where it switched.
I think I'll note hours daily or periodically on my log so I don't forget how many for the weekly timesheet.
Added ? to weekly meeting dev team doc about whether hours spent in the meeting should be counted on the time sheet. I had not considered or counted it before.
Had to record shots of animation again.
Examples of rod insertion for step 1 and Idler assembly and display https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLEPnuebxMQ&feature=youtu.be https://youtu.be/ExmzN1SBBZQ
YT handles upload of 8fps libx264 1920x1200 video in MKV with no audio just fine. It also handled ogg vorbis audio ok before.
Sat Apr 15, 2017
Progress on assembly and animating first step. Learning more Freecad details as I go. I've animated a rod rotating into the carriage. The rest of part one should be easy now. I am curious how the belt animation will go.
Made a few different video clips of zoom and angle switches with transparency on carriage to show part positioning clearly to assembler. Trying to figure out the smoothest and most concise way to convey the process.
I've also been recording some of my work as I go for possible cuts later for use in instructionals et cetera.
Thurs Apr 13, 2017
Today on the D3D Part Library page I see there is some question of stable parts and/or versioning differences. This was effectively what I was trying to ask for clarification on at the end of the meeting Monday. I rewatched some of it after it was posted on YT because it is often hard to hear others because of audio quality. I am assuming we are doing the assembly documentation because the printer design is mostly finished and those parts are just being pulled out of the full assembly or other files, especially since the Universal CNC axis was effectively finished in 2016. But, I see the File:D3D CAD Assembly.fcstd doesn't have all the small parts fully assembled in it like the bearings and the plastic clam shell halves aren't ready to break down as needed for animation yet in that file anyway.
Earlier, I was wondering if I could quickly use an existing file with x-axis delete the other parts and start animating, but looking at the full assembly file and the instructions being otherwise I decided I'd be better off just following the steps and importing parts as needed. This method might help with Freecad stability and speed too. I am not as far along as I hoped mostly due to being busy. I spent time skimming through some YT vids on animation, but I find just diving in and experimenting with the actual work to be faster more like hands-on learning. So far I think the actual explode and animate operations will go quickly once I have it re-assembled.
I recorded all my audio while it was late and quiet. I exported to ogg and then started editing some noises out in audacity. It is easy to edit, but timing and the natural speaking rate can get confused as well if too much of the pauses, breathing, and mouth noises are cut out. I recorded the whole thing in one file; Each step can be edited out into separate files easily. I am not sure if that is slower than recording each step and exporting to ogg files individually. Seems like the video will need to be longer than the audio or have pauses between steps for assemblers to finish their tasks.
I also understand my animation task better from looking over the other scripts more. Next, I'd like to animate the rods to rotate clearly into the carriage assembly. I think I can make that visible to the users if the appearance is right.
Wed Apr 12, 2017
I examined the full D3D CAD Assembly and searched for some of the parts in the script and found photos and video so I understand the parts assembly better. I tried some explode functions again on the CAD file just to see how best to create move paths and FreeCAD closed suddenly, so as always saving often is a requirement. Now I'm working on importing parts and getting the positions & orientation correct.
Tues Apr 11, 2017
Hint: Examine the D3D Overall assembly File:D3D CAD Assembly.fcstd and you can at least see how everything fits together - then the video script may make more sense if the overall assembly is good
Continued reviewing the D3D docs and video guidelines.
Experimented with parts explosion on the simple x axis example.
Read over the x-axis script.
I may need to understand machine function and assembly a little better to choreograph the parts animation, but the recording audio to each step should be easy during some quiet time; I think speaking at a moderate pace loud and clearly using my headset mic shall suffice and I have used audacity in the past so minor audio cleanup and timing/speed adjustment can be done in post. Ubuntu does not appear to have audio hardware/driver support for common sound hardware functions such as noise cancellation and beam forming, but they can be done in software on the CPU in real-time to improve mic input. Looks like a lot of potential redundancy in the axis assembly except maybe different bolt hole patterns I am not yet familiar with.
Downloaded Video Intro Template as .svg and test loaded into kdenlive to save project start.
Mon Apr 10, 2017
Installed EPA work bench into FreeCAD and I am continuing to review info on Exploded_Part_Animations
Sat Apr 8, 2017
I saw I missed the "to fit" function on the bolt in my cube so I looked for it in freecad; I ended up setting it to 27mmx240mm instead of 2.54mm, since that looked best. I see bolt thread ID/OD options and I see a multi hole align option for bolts in assembly2. I also need to understand the measure tools better.
Fri Apr 7, 2017
Busy with WWOOFers on the farm, but I finally did finished editing my freecad test video and uploaded to YT. I had some clips and a pause in work and the end only showed the finished cube for a split second so I made edits to clean it up and get it exactly 30 secs. kdenlive seems to crash often when I right click clips in the media list, but avoiding that and saving changes often helps. Other than bugs it is easy to learn including the effects. I had recorded in 8fps x264/ogg and at first thought the framerate conversion would be an issue, but it did a great job.
Wed Apr 5, 2017
Had some bugs working with Kdenlive, but managed to click everything just right finally so almost done editing; Overall it is fairly intuitive to use and the GUI is nice once you learn them.
Mon Apr 3, 2017
Finally finished editing my sketch, but crashes in Freecad have left with me with several clips to edit together so I've been looking at kdenlive tutorials. Very nice NLE that looks fairly easy to use.
Sat Apr 1, 2017
Having an issue with vokoscreen not saving the video file. I suspect the pause function being faulty, which I used before resuming and stopping when I was finished with freecad and wanted was thinking of taking a break before loading kdenlive. I got hung up on aspects of the sketch mainly positioning it, but I had given up on constraining it effectively when I shifted it around and surprisingly managed to properly constrain it. I need to go back over some functions related to mapping sketches to faces I thought I understood. Looks like I need to test vokoscreen a bit more see where the bugs are and then record again. I've been recording at a low frame rate since that seems sufficient. No point in recording at 30fps when it will be decimated to 30 secs anyway. I'm also using more open codec settings, which I assume work. I did see it save test clips before. I need to go through the kdenlive tutorials as well and I think I'll record my editing as well.