Probing routines project for Mach3

This page is a rough and ready documentation of my probing project for Mach. The aim is to provide a suite of hopefully useful probing routines like:

2.5D profile probing, auto generated profile cutting g-code and optimised 3D probing - standard 3D bed o' nails type probing but within a boundary created by the 2.5D profiling rather than within just a rectangle

Here's a vid of the first routine - 2.5D profiling or edge following

2.5D probing video
click on image to play

And here's the auto generated gcode toolpath made from the profile above.

Auto-generated toolpath video
click on image to play

And here's the bounded 3D probing routine made from the 2.5D profile above.

Bounded probing video
click on image to play

Bit more of a real world example - probing a wrench

First it was profiled with the 2.5D edge routine...

click on image to play

...then this was used to create a bounded 3D probing routine.

click on image to play

The point cloud - not too bad for a rough and ready home made probe on a 2mm stepover grid.

... and much quicker than spending most of it's time probing the table.

download point cloud for Rhino3D

After "draping" in Rhino.