A2MC Vision System (AVS)

Table of Contents
Overview ....................................................................................................................................................... 3
Comparison between AVS and I‐Cut ......................................................................................................... 3
The AVS Camera ............................................................................................................................................ 5
AVS Application (App) ................................................................................................................................... 6
Starting AVS .............................................................................................................................................. 6
AVS License ............................................................................................................................................... 8
AVS Jogging Controls................................................................................................................................. 9
AVS Navigator ....................................................................................................................................... 9
Left Click ................................................................................................................................................ 9
Right Click .............................................................................................................................................. 9
AVS Sliders .......................................................................................................................................... 10
Yellow Dot Command ......................................................................................................................... 10
Vision Controls ........................................................................................................................................ 11
Dot Size and Auto Diameter................................................................................................................ 11
Camera Calibration and Camera Angle ............................................................................................... 12
Camera X and Y Offset ........................................................................................................................ 13
Camera Filter ....................................................................................................................................... 15
Turn Camera Off During Job ............................................................................................................... 15
Dry Run................................................................................................................................................ 15
Print to Cut .................................................................................................................................................. 16
Alignment ................................................................................................................................................ 17
Dot Types ................................................................................................................................................ 17
Creating Dot Types .............................................................................................................................. 18
Importing into CAM Software ................................................................................................................. 19
Tool Pathing the Cut Outline............................................................................................................... 19
The NC File .......................................................................................................................................... 20
Sample Files ............................................................................................................................................ 21
Running Ghostbusters......................................................................................................................... 21

1
Trouble Shooting ......................................................................................................................................... 27
Camera not Connecting .......................................................................................................................... 27

2
Overview
The AVS Vision System consists of two parts:

1. The AVS camera which is generally a very simple web cam or IP camera plugged into your
computer. It can be pretty much any camera mounted on the machine’s carriage that will
generate a video image. The AVS Vision system really doesn’t care what camera it is as long as it
produces a video image.
2. The AVS App which is a piece of licensed software that runs inside the A2MC Setup GUI and
connects to the A2MC controller. The AVS App is what enables you to move the machine and
run tasks like “print to cut”.

Comparison between AVS and I­Cut

The AVS Vision system does many of the same things as I‐cut but there are some differences that are
discussed in this section.

• In general AVS is designed specifically for A2MC systems and will not run on any other machine.
I‐cut, on the other hand, will run on pretty much any machine manufactured that runs on
standard G‐Code.
• AVS is designed to run print to cut jobs printed on flatbed printers. AVS does not work well on
jobs that are printed on a roll feed printer and then laminated to a substrate material. The
reason is that the laminating process tends to create all kinds of non‐linear distortions. I‐cut can
handle non‐linear distortions, AVS cannot.
• Both AVS and I‐cut handle displacement, rotation, X stretch, Y stretch, and skew distortions.
These are typical distortions created by flatbed printers. I‐cut will also handle non‐linear
distortions that are generally restricted to lamination processes.
• AVS is typically designed for one printer and one router type operations as it does not include a
lot of “work flow” features. Larger operations tend to have multiple printers feeding multiple
cutting tables. I‐cut is a better choice in these very high volume applications.
• Since cutting is usually much faster than printing, single printer shops tend to have multiple uses
for the cutter or router and do not print to cut every day. AVS is far more flexible to change the
use of the machine back and forth between “print to cut” and alternate uses.
• Since AVS is designed specifically for the A2MC controller it is very much easier to use and
implement than I‐cut. I‐cut is much more generic and therefore has many features to handle all
kinds of machinery that interfere with the requirements of the A2MC controller.
• The I‐cut system requires that the I‐cut post is used to run the machine. This post is really
limited. The AVS works differently so any post from any CAM software can be used. This means
much more sophisticated posts can be used.
• The AVS has a large, full colour image to work with. I‐cut’s is much smaller and in black and
white so it is much more difficult and tedious to jog and position than AVS.
• The AVS system can identify three different types of dots so that the first and second dot can be
clearly located and found automatically. I‐cut only has one kind of dot so it’s difficult to know
how to sequence the dots.

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 • AVS is much faster to set up and get going on different sorts of jobs than I‐cut. I‐cut, however,
will tend to run jobs slightly faster once it is set up. AVS tends to outperform I‐cut when the job
run sizes are in the hundreds or less, whereas I‐cut has an advantage when the job runs get into
the thousands.

A general criteria for selecting the best vision system would be:

Use I‐cut if the customer has multiple printers running print to cut jobs or the typical job runs are very
large. Also use I‐cut if the customer is laminating prints on to substrate and then cutting it. Other than
that use AVS.

AVS must be used if a complex machine is being used with multiple spindles or cutters. This is also true
if advanced CAM features like tabs, complex multi pass, profile bits, or any other similar features are
required. I‐cut works in place of a CAM package like Enroute, Vectrics, ArtCAM, or Type 3 whereas AVS
will work with it and all their features.

4
The AVS Camera

The actual AVS camera system is quite simple, it consists of a USB webcam that is plugged into the
computer running the AVS App. Since typical USB connections are limited to about 5 meters and the
USB cable itself is not suitable for the machine’s cable tracks a CAT5/USB extender system is used as
shown in the diagram. The CAT5/USB extender has a “receiver” that is plugged into the camera and a
“sender” that is plugged into the computer.

The AVS Camera itself is simply a box that has a USB camera, usually a Logitech C210, pointing out of the
bottom of it and the CATS/USB “receiver” at the top. The AVS camera is mounted on the side of the
carriage so that it is about 6 inches or 150 mm above the surface of the table.

Shielded, stranded CAT5 cable must be used to run through the machine’s cable tracks. Normal CAT5
cable typically used to wire up networks is solid wire and must not be used. It will break!

The cable is run through the machine and out to the computer where it is converted back to a USB signal
using the CAT5/USB “sender”. This can either be plugged straight into the computer or an optional USB
optical isolator can be installed. Whether the isolator is required or not really depends on the computer
itself, some computers work fine without it, others tend to be intermittent. When it doubt use the
isolator.

5
AVS Application (App)
Starting AVS
To start the AVS App
connect the A2MC
Setup GUI to the
machine and select
the “Vision” tab.

The “Open video

capture device” form
will open.

Most AVS systems use a USB “webcam”

as the video capture device. From the
drop down select the webcam that is
connected to the machine. The drop
down menu will show the name of the
video device driver. In this example it is
the generic Windows driver but can also
be a Logitech driver or whatever will run
the camera.

The frame rate can be set but is defaulted to 15 frames per second and it’s usually best to just leave it at
that speed. If you are operating on a very slow computer or a computer with a slow graphics card then
you might have to slow this down in order to work. The AVS will still work but its performance will also
slow down.

Click on:

You may get this warning displayed because the AVS

App does not recognize the webcam driver or thinks
the wrong driver is installed. Generally this problem
occurs with Windows XP platforms. Usually the
warning can be ignored and just click on the check
button.

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 The AVS App will now try to
open up the camera and
obtain a video image. If
everything is working right
you will get a screen that
looks like this after a few
seconds.

A 640 by 480 pixel, full

colour, image should appear.
If it fails check the trouble
shooting section at the end
of this manual.

At this point the video image is connected to the AVS App but the AVS App is not yet connected to the
machine. Click the orange “camera button”...

The operator console will ask to enable remote

operation. This is a safety requirement of any app
that will remotely operate the machine. You have
15 seconds to go to the machine and select “YES”.

Once the machine “remote”

is enabled the full AVS App
will appear on the screen.

The resolution of the video

and the frame rate is shown
in the lower right and
should be 640 x 480 and at
least 15 frames per second.

The various features of the

AVS App are discussed in
subsequent sections.

7
AVS License
The AVS App does require a valid license. The license is connected to the machine itself so any number
of computers can have the AVS App installed but the App itself will only work on a licensed machine. If
the machine does not have license then the following screen will appear:

“N1” is a number that is unique to every A2MC. It is

actually part of the MAC ID of the mini ITX computer
in the A2MC. “N2” is the table ID of the machine.

In order to obtain a license request the AVS key from

AXYZ CPS.

Once the key is obtained type it into the appropriate

field and click the “check”. The A2MC will now be AVS
enabled.

A “KeyCodes.csv” file will be created on the A2MC compact flash as shown below:

As long as the “KeyCodes.csv” file, the A2MC itself, and the table ID stay the same the AVS App will be
enabled. If any change, by changing the A2MC hardware, losing the file, or changing the table ID the
AVS App will be disabled.

Since it is possible that the A2MC fails or something gets lost it is very important that the correct
customer details are supplied with the license request so that replacement licenses can be issued if
required.

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AVS Jogging Controls
The AVS App has a number of jogging controls:

AVS Navigator
Left Click

Right Click
Yellow Dot

AVS Sliders

There are five jogging methods; “Navigator”, “Left Click”, “Right Click”, “Sliders”, and “Yellow Dot”.

AVS Navigator
This works just like the navigator on Google maps, it even looks like that navigator. Clicking on any
arrow will simply jog the machine half a screen (about 3 inches or 75 mm) in the indicated direction.
Clicking on the “hand” in the middle will simply back up the moves. If the machine is too close to the
edge of the table then the arrows in that direction will not work.

Left Click
Left click is used by simply pointing to a place on the screen where you want the
machine to move and left clicking on the mouse. The machine will move to that
position. You can left click anywhere on the screen.

Right Click
Right clicking anywhere on the screen will create a red arrow from the centre of the screen to the
clicked location. As long as the right button on the mouse is held down this arrow will remain, when you
let go the arrow disappears. The machine will jog in the direction of the arrow and at a speed
proportional to the length of the arrow, short arrow is a slow jog, long arrow is a fast jog.

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AVS Sliders
The sliders allow you to jog quickly anywhere on the table. There is an X and a Y slider. The ends of the
sliders are the extents of the machine. Holding down and pulling the slider to any position will rapidly
move the machine. Be careful with this control as you can move the machine from one end to the other
at full speed!

Yellow Dot Command

Yellow dot commands are initiated by simply left clicking into the middle of any dot that is visible on the
screen and has either a yellow or green border.

When you click on it a yellow dot will appear in the centre of the dot and the machine will automatically
move to exactly center the dot:

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Vision Controls

The Vision Controls are accessed by clicking the “Settings” button.

The following form will appear that control how the AVS software will work:

Dot Size and Auto Diameter

Both the dot size and the auto diameter
are measured in “pixels”.
Auto Diameter
The dot size should be set to
Dot Size approximately match the size of the
dots that will be normally used. Position
the camera so that at dot is visible near
A Dot
the centre of the screen. Adjust the dot
size until the dot is circumscribed by a
yellow border.

The auto diameter determines the automatic search radius when the AVS system is looking for dots.
This value varies by the operator preference. Set it initially to about 200 pixels and then as you use the
system make adjustments that work best for your types of jobs.

11
Camera Calibration and Camera Angle
Cameras’ resolutions are measured in pixels. The machine’s resolution will be either in inches or
millimetres so there needs to be a conversion between pixels and inches or millimetres.

The camera calibration will be in either pixels per inch or pixels per millimetre. The exact value will
depend on how high the camera is actually installed above the material but is normally around 100
pixels per inch or about 4 pixels per millimetre.

The camera is often not installed perfectly square to the X and Y axis so there is a camera angle
adjustment for that measured in degrees. The camera should be mounted so “camera top” is the
positive Y axis so the camera angle is usually quite small, normally between ‐2 and +2 degrees.

Step 1: Position a dot

with within a few
pixels of the centre.

Step 2: Press “Calibrate”

Calculating the camera calibration and the camera angle is done automatically by:

1. Position a dot within a few pixels of the centre of the screen as shown. The dot must be
circumscribed with a yellow border. You can either jog the machine to the dot or simply move
the dot under the camera.
2. Make sure the Auto Diameter is set to at least 200 pixels. You can always shrink it later but the
calibration is more accurate if the auto diameter is set larger.
3. Press “Calibrate”.
4. The machine will move the dot around the inside of the auto diameter and will take sufficient
measurements to calculate both the camera calibration and the camera angle. These values will
automatically be placed into the form.

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Camera X and Y Offset

The camera X offset and

camera Y offset is the
distance from the centre of
the tool in Position 1 to the
centre of the camera image
as shown on this diagram.

Camera Y Offset If you have a multiple

position machine always
measure the camera from
position 1. All the rest of
the offsets will then be
Camera X Offset
calculated correctly.

These offsets can be typed in manually however they are also calculated as part of the calibration
process. After the camera calibration and camera angle are calculated the operator console will
prompt:

You can either use the jog keys to

locate position 1 (P1) directly over a
printed dot or you can drill a ¼ inch
(6 mm) hole with position 1 (P1) into
a white piece of plastic.

Either way you need to align the

centre of a dot exactly with the
centre of the tool in P1.

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 Once the tool inn P1 has been located the
operator console will prompt, “Camera to
P1 Mark”. Return to the AVS software
and use the jog features to move close to
the dot that was marked.

Once it is visible on the screen simply click

into the middle of the dot and the AVS
software will command the machine to
find and centre the dot.

Once the dot is centered the Camera X

Offset and Camera Y Offset will be
calculated and the values filled into the
form as shown below.

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Camera Filter
In order to properly “find” black dots on white backgrounds the AVS software filters the camera image.
This filter can be viewed by checking the “Show Filter” feature in the Vision Controls form.

Filter OFF Filter ON

Normally leave the filter off in order to get a full colour image on the camera. However, the filter can be
turned on to check if the camera is producing a clean image. If the camera is out of focus or the
ambient light is insufficient then the filtered image will clearly show any problems.

Turn Camera Off During Job

Sometimes all the equipment such as vacuum pumps, spindles, and dust collectors will interfere with
the camera and cause the software to crash or the camera to disconnect unexpectedly. The camera is
not really needed while a job is running so it can be turned off to avoid these interference problems.
The camera will automatically re‐connect after the job is complete.

Dry Run
If Dry Run is selected the job will run without actually lowering the spindle and without turning the
spindle on. This feature is very useful for training purposes as well as testing out a job to see if things
line up before actually cutting into the material.

15
Print to Cut
Print to cut is a two step process:

1. An image is printed onto usually a rigid or semi rigid material using a flatbed printer.
2. The image is mechanically cut out using a router table or knife cutter.

Flatbed Printer
Graphics Software Printer
Driver
(e.g. Adobe Illustrator)

.ai or .dxf format file

CAM Software NC format file Router

(e.g. Enroute, ArtCam,

Vectric)

The process starts by creating a graphic using some sort or graphics software. In the example above the
graphic is a green smiley face. The graphics software can be anything that will operate the printer but
likely the most popular is Adobe Illustrator.

The material is loaded on to the flatbed printer and the image from the graphics software is printed
using the appropriate printer driver as shown on the right side of the diagram.

16
The graphics software also exports the cutting outline in either “.ai” or “.dxf” format. The “.ai” or “.dxf”
file is then imported into a CAM (computer aided manufacturing) software such as Enroute, ArtCAM, or
Vectric.

The CAM software then generates an “.nc” format file that the router table can understand.

Finally the router table runs the nc file and cuts out the printed image for the final product.

Alignment
The challenge of the above process is to accurately align the cut file being run on the router to the image
printed on the material by the flat bed cutter.

This is done by printing a number of dots on the material outside of the image:

The dots should be black and about 0.25 inches or 6 mm in diameter. They should be well spread out.
There should be at least three dots with four or five being optimal. The centre of these dots are then
located by the AVS camera, processed by the AVS software which then adjusts the cutting file to exactly
match the printed image.

Dot Types
The dots can be all the same but this method has the disadvantage in that it is sometimes difficult to
know which dot should be located first and which dot is second. The AVS software can recognize three
different types of dots:

Type A Type B Type C

Type A is a “target” and is the first dot the software will search for, type B is a donut or annular ring and
is the second dot the software will seek, all the rest of the dots are type C and are simply dots. If dot

17
types A and B are used then there must be only one of each in the printed image, all the remaining dots
are then type C:

This diagram shows a typical printed output from the flatbed printer using one type A, one type B, and
two type C dots.

On the actual AVS operator’s screen the different dot types appear as follows:

Note that dot type C is not labelled.

Creating Dot Types

It is important that the dot types are created properly in Adobe or whatever graphics software is being
used.

When creating the annular ring or “type B” the wrong

way is to create a circle and then give the outline a
thickness as shown on the left. When this gets
exported as an outline to the CAM program all you will
get is a single circle indicated by the yellow dashes. RIGHT!
WRONG! The right way is on the right. Put a white dot into the
centre of a black dot. Now you will get two outlines as
shown. For a “type A” dot put a third black dot in the
middle to get a third outline.

18
Importing into CAM Software
The next step is to export the cut outline and the dots to the CAM software. Once imported into the
CAM software the file should appear as shown below:

Note that the cut file is now a single large circle as this is the outline of the smiley face. The type C dots
are simply small circles. Type A dot are three concentric circles and type B dots are two concentric
circles.

Tool Pathing the Cut Outline

The actual cutting outline is tool pathed using whichever tool is required to cut the material. All the dots
must be pathed as “drill” points and assigned as tool 1000 (T1000). The AVS system recognizes tool
1000 to be a dot that will be searched for by the camera.

The dots must be sequenced first, before any of cutting contours. It does not matter the order of the
dots as the AVS software will find the type A dot first, the type B second, and it really doesn’t matter
what the order of the rest of the dots is. It also will not matter what the depth of the drill is.

19
The NC File
The nc file (smiley.nc) generated by the post from the CAM software must output the dots as drill points
first followed by the normal tool path:

G20G90 Inches and absolute mode

M6T1000 Set to tool 1000 (AVS camera)
G0X1Y1
G1Z0
G0Z3
G1Z0 This is a double drill point so dot type B
G0Z3
G0X1Y11
G1Z0
G0Z3
G1Z0
G0Z3
G1Z0 This is a triple drill point so dot type A
G0Z3
G0X11Y11
G1Z0 Single drill point so dot type C
G0Z3
G0X11Y1
G1Z0 Single drill point so dot type C
G0Z3
M6T1 Set to cutting tool T1
G0X1Y6
G1Z0
G2X1Y6I6J6F300 Cut the smiley face outline at 300
G0Z3
M30 End of cutting file

This is the file that must be downloaded to the A2MC controller to run the machine.

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Sample Files
Sample AVS cut files are available for download at the following link:

http://www.a2mc‐cnc.com/avs.html

The downloads are available by clicking the icon in the lower left corner of the web page. A “zip” file
with a number of folders will be downloaded.

Each folder is separate job and will include 5 files:

1. An “.ai” file that is the entire graphic. This can be opened up in Adobe Illustrator.
2. An “.ai” file that contains just the outline of the graphic and the registration dots. This is the file
that can be imported into your CAM package.
3. A “.dxf” file that contains just the outline of the graphic and the registration dots. This is the
exact same file as number 2 except in “.dxf” format. Some CAM packages do not do well with
“.ai” files so this is an alternative.
4. A “.pdf” file of the graphic. This can be used to print your own graphic to try out on the
machine. All the graphics are small enough to fit on a normal printer.
5. Finally a “.nc” file which can be downloaded to the machine and run.

The quickest way to learn how to use the AVS system is to print the “.pdf” graphics supplied in the
sample files and download the associated “.nc” files in the A2MC controller. Once you have the sample
“.pdf” and “.nc” files running as you expect simply work backwards through your graphics and cam
software using the attached “.ai” files. I little experimentation and you should get the hang of how it all
works.

Running Ghostbusters

One of the folders has the “Ghostbusters”

AVS files. Open the pdf file and you should
see the image on the left. Print it the image
on any printer. It can be black or white or in
colour.

Note the four registration dots on the

image. There is one type A dot at the top,
one type B on the left side and the lower
and right hand ones are type C.

Lay the printed image on top of the

machine.

Download the “ghostbusters.nc” file into the A2MC controller.

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 The first time you run the job you
should put the AVS software into
“Dry Run” mode by checking the box
in the Vision Controls form. You get
to this form by selecting “Settings”
from the main Vision tab.

The AVS system will stay in “Dry Run”

until you uncheck it.

Dry run will simply run the job in the

air so you can see what is going on.
Once you are ready uncheck it and
the AVS system will run the full job.

The next step is to set the G55 origin of the job close to the lower left corner of the sheet of paper as
shown below:

The next step is to set the

G55 origin of the job close
to the lower left corner of
the sheet of paper. The
reason you need to do this
is so that the camera will
get close enough to the
first dot so that the AVS
system can find it
automatically.

Use function 10
to set G55 user
origin.

22
 The ghostbusters job needs to be selected.
This can be done by clicking on the file key in
the Setup GUI:

Find the job in the directory, right click and

click on “Select”.

Alternatively the file button can be used on

the operator console. Either way
“ghostbusters.nc” needs to become the
active job:
Select

Once the AVS software has been set to “Dry Run”, the origin has been
set to the lower left corner of the “material”, and the ghostbusters.nc
job has been selected the job is ready to run.

Click on the START key to run the job.

23
The machine will now search for
each of the dots in sequence
starting with the Type A dot, then
the Type B dot, and then all the rest. 1
In this job there are four dots. Each
one will be “found” and the machine
will centre itself over the dot and
move on to the next one as shown
by the number diagrams on this
page.

24
If the AVS is set to “Dry Run” the machine will retrace all the dots and check and report on the accuracy.
You will see this on the display as well as it is printed out in the activity log:

• 4:44:25 PM Dry run dot testing started...

• 4:44:25 PM in stretchy. XSCos= 1.0014 YSSin= ‐0.0080 YSCos= 0.9997 XSSin= ‐0.0117
• 4:44:25 PM offset X = ‐5.374 offset Y= ‐17.577
• 4:44:29 PM dot #1 x=0.379 y=‐8.049 dx=0.008 dy=0.000
• 4:44:34 PM dot #2 x=‐3.522 y=‐10.217 dx=0.004 dy=‐0.004
• 4:44:38 PM dot #3 x=‐1.529 y=‐14.333 dx=‐0.004 dy=‐0.004
• 4:44:42 PM dot #4 x=2.777 y=‐12.179 dx=0.004 dy=0.000
• 4:44:42 PM ....Dry run dot testing ended.

The displacement values dx and dy are shown in inches and should be less than 0.01 inches if everything
is working properly.

The operator console display will prompt you to start the job by
pressing the START again.

The job will run in dry run mode with the camera running exactly
over the image so you can watch on the computer screen exactly
how closely the image is traced out.

The only difference when not running in “dry mode” is that the dots are not retraced and the spindle
will actually cut on the image.

25
If the origin is off by a considerable distance or the image is severely rotated out of place the first and/or
second dot might be significantly out of place and outside the auto circle as shown in the example
above. In this case the operator display will prompt you to locate the correct dot type. Simply jog until
the correct dot appears on the screen and click on the dot. The dot will center and the AVS will proceed
to find the rest of the dots. After the second dot the AVS system will have calculated the correct origin
and rotation adjustment and it should find the rest of the dots without further operator intervention.

To get familiar with the AVS system use the three sample files and practice rotating and shifting the
sample jobs around on the table.

26
Trouble Shooting
Camera not Connecting
The AVS software will attempt to connect to
the camera and obtain a “live” image. I after
10 seconds it cannot “see” an image you will
get this message.

This message usually indicates that the camera is not working or the camera driver is not working.
Often this is a result of the driver not being compatible to the version of Windows operating system you
are using. This needs to be checked.

If the AVS software cannot see the camera then neither can other camera software utilities. The best
way to troubleshoot this problem is to use the “Scanner and Camera Wizard” utility that can be found
under “Accessories” in your programs list. This utility is standard with Windows:

27