Suggestions on improving my photography scale.

[Misha]

Hello everyone!

I have wanted to create myself a dedicated scale to use for photographing fossils, as I too often forget to include a scale in my photos and I think that a special scale would be more interesting than  just a ruler, it could also be helpful for objects that are not as flat for scale in 3 dimensions.

My initial thought was to make a cube, but I also wanted to include both imperial and metric units so that everyone on the forum can easily tell the size. So for my first design I decided to try making a cube that has dimensions of one inch along all sides with a 1 cm³ cube cut out of the corner. 

This design was nice and quite simple too, but I think it could still be improved. I am just not sure exactly how. I was thinking about including a small ruler along both the 1 in and 1 cm side so that you would also be able to see mm and the smaller units, but that might be too fine for my 3D printer, although I'll need to try it first. 

I just wanted to ask here as well if anyone has any ideas of what would make the best possible scale for use here on TFF. What would you want to see it this was a scale included in a photo of a fossil or one that you were using yourself?

Thank you for your consideration and any suggestions,

Misha

[jpc]

Nice.  What if you make the 'in' and 'cm' indented?  And rather than a square if it were 5 inches long on one side, it would be useful for larger fossils. 

Just a few thoughts.

  

[Misha]

13 minutes ago, jpc said:

Nice.  What if you make the 'in' and 'cm' indented?  And rather than a square if it were 5 inches long on one side, it would be useful for larger fossils. 

Just a few thoughts.

  

Those are some good ideas!

Yes, the indents are something I have been thinking of and have made a model with that, 

As for 5 inches that could also be handy, for taking pictures of fossils in situ, although otherwise I generally deal with smaller fossils myself. I might make two different ones for these separate purposes

[Crusty_Crab]

Great idea! From what I understand, A in the diagram below is 1 cm and not B. For myself, a more useful vertical frame of reference would be from the bottom surface to 1 cm height rather than trying to reference a floating 1 cm height that has been cut out. My suggestion would be to make B 1 cm in height since that is an easier way to visualize it rather than A, which is floating 1.54 cm above the bottom.

 

 

[FranzBernhard]

Very good idea, I like it! If it is really useful and you may really like it in the long run - you will see. But this does not matter, the idea and creativity is very good, this matters .

 

9 hours ago, Misha said:

What would you want to see

The least obtrusive, yet clearly visible scale as possible . Sometimes, its simply not practical, to put a scale in the field of view. In this cases, a later included "electronic scale" may work fine (with the advantage of lots of freedom to design it for the very special specimen). Sometimes, its simply the best to give the size in the description and the filename.

 

9 hours ago, Misha said:

or one that you were using yourself

I don´t want to show off this 1.0 x 0.5 cm small piece of dirty cardboard I am regularly using....

 

Franz Bernhard

[Misha]

Yesterday I worked on and printed a second version of this cube, 

Now the letters were inverted and I added a scale in inches and mm to each side to see if it would print. 

The new model was made to have three flat faces and three faces with scales, which I thought would give it the optimal amount of accuracy and ways of positioning the cube so that you can have which ever part of the scale you would want near your object.

Here is how the actual model looked:

Unfortunately I forgot to take into a count that the nozzle on this printer was 0.4 mm in diameter, this meant that any details of horizontal width below that would be smoothed over by my slicing program, this meant that all but the vertical scales were removed.

Here is how I got the piece today, the marks are a bit rough on one side of the cube but looking at them next to a ruler they turned out to be accurate:

Here are some ways I thought that it could be used in taking pictures of a small fossil:

 

Overall I think it is an improvement but I will still be working on it and am open to any additional suggestions

Thank you for viewing, 

Misha

Edited December 7, 2021 by Misha

[Misha]

Also, I forgot to mention but as with the other 3d printed things I've made, if any forum members want the files for this I am happy to share the files.

I would also be happy to print one and send it to anyone as long as they can cover shipping, which shouldn't be much as these are small and light.

[fossilhunter21]

Wow! Very cool! 

[Nanotyrannus35]

On 12/7/2021 at 1:12 PM, Misha said:

Here is how I got the piece today, the marks are a bit rough on one side of the cube but looking at them next to a ruler they turned out to be accurate:

Would you be able to make the layer size smaller? I think that that would at least help accuracy for the lines and make them look nicer.

[Misha]

1 hour ago, Nanotyrannus35 said:

Would you be able to make the layer size smaller? I think that that would at least help accuracy for the lines and make them look nicer.

The layer lines are currently 0.08 mm, with a nozzle of 0.4mm you can't make them much smaller and doing so won't change much. 

The marks are accurate, the ones are just a little rough along the one side but their positioning is fine. The only thing that affects is that they aren't as visually pleasing, turning up the cooling on a printer or having them stick out a bit less could probably solve the issue, but I'm fine with how they are now.

Edited December 8, 2021 by Misha

[Randyw]

Looking great. Have you thought about indenting the scale marks also? Looks like it would be very handy and easy to use.

[Misha]

1 hour ago, Randyw said:

Looking great. Have you thought about indenting the scale marks also? Looks like it would be very handy and easy to use.

I have, but I am not sure that the printer will print that.

I'll try it out and post my results when it is finished!

[Misha]

@Randyw

I was able to make the changes quite quickly and got it printed today.

I really like the look of the indented notches and surprisingly, this time it actually printed all of them!

This does present some other challenges though, in that for some reason something with my settings is off and the notches on flat walls makes many layer inconsistencies. But for now I think that can be worked around by sanding the piece and maybe adding paint or clear coat, I might try that with this one tomorrow

[Randyw]

I like it!

[Sjfriend]

I like the new version. Very nice idea!