Schlagwort: Kodak

  • 3DPrinterOS Cloud-Based Operating System is Integrated Into KODAK Portrait 3D Printers

    3DPrinterOS Cloud-Based Operating System is Integrated Into KODAK Portrait 3D Printers

    Reading Time: 3 minutes

    3DPrinterOS, the cloud-based 3D printer management company, announced that it will be integrated into the Kodak Portrait 3D printer ecosystem. The partnership will help provide schools and enterprises with a way to manage files, track printers and materials, and enable printing from networked computers.

    3DPrinterOS, the company behind the world’s first operating system for desktop 3D printers, has the “goal of driving mass adoption of the technology in educational institutions and enterprises.” So far, the technology is already in use in some of the most prestigious universities, such as Yale and Harvard, as well as in high-profile companies such as Bosch.

    Despite the impressive list of clientele, the company is showing no signs of slowing down. For instance, it recently announced a partnership with Microsoft, a deal that helped make its cloud platform more powerful and scalable by using Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing service.

    Now, 3DPrinterOS has revealed that it’ll also be powering the Kodak Portrait 3D printer from Smart International, which was announced last year. If you purchase the 3D printer, you’ll also receive the 3DPrinterOS Cloud 3D Printer Management software as a complementary part of the package.

    The idea behind this integration is to reach high-profile companies with the cloud-based management technology. With backing from Vulcan Capital, the private equity firm, it’s likely that they’ll have a pretty good shot at achieving this.

    “We are extremely proud to integrate our software with the launch of this new professional KODAK 3D Portrait Printer,” said John Dogru, 3DPrinterOS CEO. “This is a big step towards mass adoption and compatibility. Very similar to the success DOS and IBM experienced with the PC in the 80’s, 3DPrinterOS believes in the same vision to combine our expertise in software, chemistry, and manufacturing to build a class leading product.”

    3DPrinterOS Enables Ability to Track Printing Statistics on the Kodak Portrait 3D Printer

    The Kodak Portrait is a professional-grade 3D printer that will cost in the ballpark of $2,999. It offers a generous print volume of 200x200x250mm (8’’x8’’x10’’). However, despite this and its robust steel forged hardware, it’s still compact enough to fit on a desk and be transportable.

    The Kodak also boasts dual extrusion capabilities with lifting nozzles, a nozzle-wiping mechanism to avoid color contamination, a safety-enclosed temperature controlled chamber and temperature support of up to 300°C.

    By integrating 3DPrinterOS in the 3D printing ecosystem, businesses or schools will have access to a centralized system which makes managing files, tracking printers, material expenses, users or designs and printing from any networked computer easy. If the institution already has 3D printers, they’ll also be able to network these machines through the software as well.

    Finally, 3DPrinterOS also adds that tracking printing statistics becomes simple on a per user or design and machine basis giving insight into print failures leading to better performance.

    3DPrinterOS
    3DPrinterOS


    Website: LINK

  • Converting a Kodak Box Brownie into a digital camera

    Converting a Kodak Box Brownie into a digital camera

    Reading Time: 3 minutes

    In this article from The MagPi issue 69, David Crookes explains how Daniel Berrangé took an old Kodak Brownie from the 1950s and turned it into a quirky digital camera. Get your copy of The MagPi magazine in stores now, or download it as a free PDF here.

    Daniel Berrangé Kodak Brownie Raspberry Pi Camera

    The Kodak Box Brownie

    When Kodak unveiled its Box Brownie in 1900, it did so with the slogan ‘You press the button, we do the rest.’ The words referred to the ease-of-use of what was the world’s first mass-produced camera. But it could equally apply to Daniel Berrangé’s philosophy when modifying it for the 21st century. “I wanted to use the Box Brownie’s shutter button to trigger image capture, and make it simple to use,” he tells us.

    Daniel Berrangé Kodak Brownie Raspberry Pi Camera

    Daniel’s project grew from a previous effort in which he placed a pinhole webcam inside a ladies’ powder compact case. “The Box Brownie project is essentially a repeat of that design but with a normal lens instead of a pinhole, a real camera case, and improved software to enable a shutter button. Ideally, it would look unchanged from when it was shooting film.”

    Webcam woes

    At first, Daniel looked for a cheap webcam, intending to spend no more than the price of a Pi Zero. This didn’t work out too well. “The low-light performance of the webcam was not sufficient to make a pinhole camera so I just decided to make a ‘normal’ digital camera instead,” he reveals.
    To that end, he began removing some internal components from the Box Brownie. “With the original lens removed, the task was to position the webcam’s electronic light sensor (the CCD) and lens as close to the front of the camera as possible,” Daniel explains. “In the end, the CCD was about 15 mm away from the front aperture of the camera, giving a field of view that was approximately the same as the unmodified camera would achieve.”

    It was then time for him to insert the Raspberry Pi, upon which was a custom ‘init’ binary that loads a couple of kernel modules to run the webcam, mount the microSD file system, and launch the application binary. Here, Daniel found he was in luck. “I’d noticed that the size of a 620 film spool (63 mm) was effectively the same as the width of a Raspberry Pi Zero (65 mm), so it could be held in place between the film spool grips,” he recalls. “It was almost as if it was designed with this in mind.”

    Shutter success

    In order to operate the camera, Daniel had to work on the shutter button. “The Box Brownie’s shutter button is entirely mechanical, driven by a handful of levers and springs,” Daniel explains. “First, the Pi Zero needs to know when the shutter button is pressed and second, the physical shutter has to be open while the webcam is capturing the image. Rather than try to synchronise image capture with the fraction of a second that the physical shutter is open, a bit of electrical tape was used on the shutter mechanism to keep it permanently open.”

    Daniel Berrangé Kodak Brownie Raspberry Pi Camera

    Daniel made use of the Pi Zero’s GPIO pins to detect the pressing of the shutter button. It determines if each pin is at 0 or 5 volts. “My thought was that I could set a GPIO pin high to 5 V, and then use the action of the shutter button to short it to ground, and detect this change in level from software.”

    This initially involved using a pair of bare wires and some conductive paint, although the paint was later replaced by a piece of tinfoil. But with the button pressed, the GPIO pin level goes to zero and the device constantly captures still images until the button is released. All that’s left to do is smile and take the perfect snap.

    Website: LINK