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Among its many features are ease-of-use, high performance, flexibility, and low cost that give you the best laser marking software on the market today. Designed to be both a retro-fit package and the original software on new machines, ProLase can support a large variety of galvanometric hardware configurations, including most existing laser marking systems, marking heads and lasers.
Whether it is for the integrator looking for a richly featured platform flexible enough to support all their marking solutions, or the job shop that demands that highest quality engraving possible, ProLase is the right choice.
Text, barcodes, graphics, fonts, fills, automation, parts handling, machine control, interfaces, transformations, security controls, support, quality, flexibility, affordability and more!
ProLase has all the features that you should demand in quality laser engraving software!
These are a few of our Latest feature enhancements to ProLase 10.
ID Matrix bar code logic has been rewritten to behave much more like a closed polygon graphic.
The new logic allows for the use of standard hatch fill capability. This has improved the marking performance by as much as 35%. The hatch fill parameters includes cross hatching, multiple angle hatching, fill density control, kerf compensation, and bidirectional marking. Inverse ID Matrix marking allows for laser processing of both dark and light areas which can provide higher contrast on some materials verses just marking the dark or just marking the light. Kerf compensation can be used to compensate for “bleed”, providing for higher quality readability on some materials.
ProLase 10 has a new surface distortion correction feature that allows for marking around cylinders and spherical surfaces without surface curvature distortions. This features allows for distortion free marking of up to 160 degrees around curved surfaces when used with materials that are not extremely sensitive to laser focal point.
This new method is highly reliable, version independent, and greatly simplifies getting vector graphics into ProLase. The tool named WinLINE (www.winline.com, approximately $200 per copy) is a print driver that allows a user to print from almost any Window’s application (word, ACAD, AI, Solid Works, etc.). The print driver creates a consistent version of HPGL/2 easily loaded into ProLase. The WinLINE driver allows for the use of selective fill and direct Rich Text editing within ProLase. A demo version of WinLINE can be installed following the installation instructions in the ProLase User’s Manual. The demo can be run with ProLase for testing before actually purchasing WinLINE. The demo will include a “spoiler mark” which goes away when you use the purchased version of WinLINE.
ProLase includes a new “Rich Text” editor that allows for direct input of text in any supported
Window’s language (i.e. Chinese, Arabic, etc.). Like Word or other rich text editors you can cut and paste text from almost any document. Use of the Rich Text editor feature requires the use of the WinLINE print driver. The print driver is approximately $200 per copy and can be purchased directly from WinLine (www.winline.com). You can mix alignments, text size, languages and fonts as you like within the editor. The result is one ProLase object that behaves just like a fixed text object using Window’s Kerning, allowing you to position, size, rotate, or change aspect of the object using the normal ProLase tools. At any time you can return to the Rich Text editor and modify the original document. The editor also allows you to “open” .RTF documents created by other programs that can create .RTF files (Word for example). If the opened document is multi-page, only the first page is used to create the ProLase object. The end result is a ProLase fixed text object that can be manipulated just like a Window’s font, using Window’s kerning.
In ProLase DCA, AutoTile is the ability to use a combination of the XY galvos and external motion systems to perform marks not possible with galvos alone. The simplest example is wanting to a 24″X24″ image while the mark field is only 6″X6″, and a 24″X24″ stepper motor driven XY table. In this example the AutoTile logic will break the image up into many 6″X6″ tiles to fill the 24″X24″ area. Each vector is analyzed to find out which tile it belongs in. Any vector that crosses a tile boundary is broken at the boundary, where that boundary point becomes the end of a vector in the first tile and the beginning of a new vector in the next tile. If the same vector crosses another tile boundary it will be broken again. Each vector can be broken up into many pieces, with each piece contained within a tile. This process is performed on every vector within the image. During real time marking of the image, the XY table is move to a tile position and all vectors assigned to that tile are marked. The table moves to the next tile position and all its vectors are marked, this is repeated through all tile positions until the complete image is marked. The tiles can be configured by the user to any rectangle whose biggest side in no larger than the field size.
This same process can be used to mark around a cylinder, in this case the tile size in the rotational direction is defined as an angle. For example, if the user selects 5 degrees as the rotational tile size, the vectors will be broken at the boundary every 5 degrees. The vector list for the first tile is marked, the object is rotated 5 degrees and then that tiles vector list is marked. This is repeated all the way around the cylinder. The rotational tiling can be combined with a linear axis tiling to wrap a long image around and along a cylinder whose length exceeds the lens field size.
AutoTile can result in seams at the tile boundaries. Seams are a big subject in laser marking.
Many things contribute to seams, most if not all are the result of less than precise mechanicals.
For a high quality AutoTile system everything must be precisely calibrated, level, flat, aligned, perpendicular, parallel, etc. For example if the XY table is mounted slightly offset in angle from the galvo XY, a wedge shaped seam will be created. If the field is not precisely calibrated, there will be a constant width parallel seam between all tiles in X and Y directions. If marking a cylindrical part like a pen or drill bit, and the part diameters vary from pen to pen for example, there will be seams, some big, some small depending on how much the current parts diameter varies from the value programmed in ProLase. Stability of the mechanical system is also important, if there is any “slack” or movement in the mechanical elements of the system there will be seams. Many of these can eliminated or at least minimized by quality system design and construction. Anybody who just throws together a marking system is going to be very frustrated trying to perform quality AutoTile applications.
That being said, there are some things the user can do to address seams. If marking cylindrical parts as in the example above, smaller angular tile sizes makes the system less sensitive to part diameter variations. In ProLase Plus smaller tile angles took much longer to mark. The new ProLase DCA has greatly improved that situation, making it practical to use very small tile angles without a big time hit.
There is a feature in ProLase DCA called “Seam Compensation” that can “hide” some of the seaming effects. Seam Compensation can correct small seaming issues, but cannot correct for bad system geometry as mentioned above. Seam Compensation breaks the boundary vectors in such a way as to stitch (think finger jointing in wood trim) the seams together. The user can specify the “finger” length. This doesn’t eliminate the seams, but rather spreads them out laterally in a random fashion so they are not as noticeable to the eye. On some materials, like anodized aluminum for example, the seams will completely vanish, on very sensitive materials there may remain some minor seaming effects.