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Digimax 3D Digitizer

NeXT

NeXT

Veteran Member
Joined
Oct 22, 2008
Messages
8,175
Location
Kamloops, BC, Canada
Adrian brought a bunch of goodies to the ICF and among them was this thing in the box with cables and not much else. It's a rotisserie with a movable digitizing point so you can take physical objects and map their geometry into software/CAD. I've seen modern variants on this idea since the 90's and you can still get them but I've never seen a commercial product this old, much less with Amiga support. He said he would look for the manual in his garage (Adrians Digital Garage...*snerk* ) but he didn't have much luck finding the software.
Impulse Inc. is a name I've never heard of and same with Google. The Digimax also wasn't popular enough it seems to be all over google as well as it gives me all sorts of unrelated results for other products (mostly digital cameras) and companies. I can find one person that has the manual, plus Versions 1 and 2 of the software for both the PC and the Amiga and of course, they want $40usd, plus an additional $25 for shipping. Has anyone else already archived the software?
 
A very very nice person ended up purchasing the software and digitizing it, so copies of the PC and Amiga software should be available on the Internet Archive in relatively short order.

In the meantime I've also received a copy and have spent the last few days trying to get it working. It's being as fussy as a child.

-You can't run it in Windows
-You cannot run it in a DOS session while Windows is running
-Mouse.sys needs to be loaded when running under DOS
-It is not compatible with EMM386
-If running under a 386, a Co-Processor must be present

I'll keep trying to get this working, even if I have to pull more machines out of storage.

There is also documentation that was scanned and included. I should read that for system requirements at this point because it's being a lot more obtuse than I was expecting. :p
 
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Okay, this software is indeed something.

CGS_12396.JPG


The UI is the Amiga. It has the mouse and the menu style is the same thing, just tweaked to work on a PC. The software is primitive and it really wants you to make the model in vertically entered points. This means you are going to spend a ton of time mapping out the object with a pen before you ever input one coordinate. The more points of input the better but after an hour of mapping and digitizing I'm satisfied with what it created. Be warned though the software only has one step of Undo, so if you mess up earlier I've yet to figure out how to fix that.

CGS_12398.JPG


Now are you making models you do anything with?
The software can export in two types of DXF file. PolyFace mesh and 3D mesh.

CGS_12399.JPG


Can you import it to any recognizable modelling tool? You bet you can!
Both under AutoCAD and Strata3D the DXF imports fine. This is a perfectly usable product.


CGS_12401.JPG

CGS_12400.JPG
 
I just came across your Digimax/DigiClay post. I have one of these 3D scanners too. I haven't come across anyone else with one of these. I'm not sure. which version of the software mine has. Where did you upload the software you found? I attached a scan of my DigiClay manual.
 

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