Hey,
So a few years ago, I got a laser cutter. It was a 4W diode laser, the Emblaser. I have been using it, on and off, since I got it. One of the things I immediately did upon getting it was attempt to make proper height walls for my Space Crusade board. That attempt failed, as I kept changing the parameters after I made a cut and tried to assemble it.
After a while, I found an extension for Inkscape that made boxes. It was written in Python code. I'm a software engineer, so I had a look in the file, found the (paltry) help page for writing extensions for Inkscape, and started making my own extension.
Worked on it on and off for years. This year, I resolved to at least finish it, fix the bugs - and if I wanted to make additions later, I could do that.
Here's some work in progress pieces:
A room, with no doors, to test that all the wall sections meet up correctly when there are any given combination of convex/concave corners. This one didn't fit properly, I found the bug.
A room with all 4 walls being doors, or "connection" pieces for corridors - I don't want to cut out corridors that are too long, it's easier to break a long corridor down into 2 small ones with one connector.
A simple 'swing' door. This is not the design I'm going to end up with, I don't like it very much.
A stencil for marking hazard lines under my new door design. The floors of the rooms will be a layer of 1mm thick cardboard on top of the 3mm MDF. Designs cut into these 'detail panels' will hopefully mean I can spray paint each piece of the terrain a flat colour, and when assembled, it will look half-decent before doing any detail painting or weathering.
The door's detail panel, glued on in this prototype. Can see the assembled door frame with the hazard lines marked in the background. Note that those hazard lines were done with my daughters' textas, I didn't bother getting my spray paint out for this test.
The fully assembled door. It slides right out from the top when the door is opened.
My latest cut, on my new laser. It's the same room as before (3 open connectors and 1 door), but this time I also cut the detail panels for the room and connectors floors. A grid of 196 1mm holes per 'tile'.
I'll try to keep my gallery and this thread updated as I make more progress. Next on the list is detail panels for the inside walls of rooms.
That's all for now!
Cheers,
Antony
So a few years ago, I got a laser cutter. It was a 4W diode laser, the Emblaser. I have been using it, on and off, since I got it. One of the things I immediately did upon getting it was attempt to make proper height walls for my Space Crusade board. That attempt failed, as I kept changing the parameters after I made a cut and tried to assemble it.
After a while, I found an extension for Inkscape that made boxes. It was written in Python code. I'm a software engineer, so I had a look in the file, found the (paltry) help page for writing extensions for Inkscape, and started making my own extension.
Worked on it on and off for years. This year, I resolved to at least finish it, fix the bugs - and if I wanted to make additions later, I could do that.
Here's some work in progress pieces:
I'll try to keep my gallery and this thread updated as I make more progress. Next on the list is detail panels for the inside walls of rooms.
That's all for now!
Cheers,
Antony
