Awesome video! I'm so glad I was able to help preserve the elusive software and documentation. Thanks for demonstrating this rare beast!

The company that made this, Impulse, also made a 3D modeling & ray tracing package called Imagine (hence the default file format). It was originally for the Amiga and had the exact same GUI as the Digimax software.

In 1981 when I was in the ninth grade I used my Atari 400 and four game paddles to make a 3d translated in rough for using a simple basic program to peek into the memory map positions and reading the paddle positions which were 256, or -128 to 128 I think, been awhile, basically a positive and a negative movement from the three axis. I used a program I found in a PC software book which drew a circle on the screen. I created named variables in the circle drawing calculations radians, sine, cosine number. Turning the to x and y knobs changed the shape of circle and the third paddle z axis stepped the next circle to space away. The data was saved into a 3 dimensional array to save the entered data step and for screen redraw.

Wow this is so cool!!! It wasn’t even me who hooked up the Mini. It was the previous owner I got this from. Steve is a legend to get the software for this. Wow!! I never found the disks or manuals although all the stuff I got with this (and all the other hardware) is spread in various places in my house. So one day it might show up in which I’ll archive it.

That is a beautiful Laserjet in the corner. I have a 4M/plus that I use for PCB toner transfer. I could beat someone to death with that printer and it wouldn't have a scratch on it, plus it's still cheaper to run than any modern junk. Absolutely from the golden age of hardware mfg.

I'm so happy that everything (and it was a lot!) came together so that this facinating piece of hardware still lives. Amazing that Mac84 was able to recognise the value in preserving the software and documentation, because the odds of finding those were slim to none (but not impossible). I would love to see the process of digitising a model (especially if it involved an Amiga) and then creating a 3D-printed replica using modern hardware! But, for now, this was awesome.

There is SO MUCH missing from the mid and late 90s that never got archived. Anything from 1994 to 1999 is pretty much GONE. Especially if it was on AOL or something like that. Bless the older Millennials who still have these things and are willing to archive them.

Very Amiga-ish software environment. I wonder how it plays on the original target platform.

A really neat device! Thanks to you and the helpers for the effort to get it up and running! Awesome seeing unique hardware like this.

I really want this style of touch-based 3D scanner over camera and distance sensors now commonly available, as its not reliant on color/material, and its simply dropping vertices where they are, translating between real world and digital spaces. retopologizing the scanned select vertex points would make the most straightforward vector/lossless data for replication, albeit a manual work.

this was really interesting, knowing how old tec worked really gives a perspective and appreciation of todays tec

this was so freaking awesome. i think im going to shed a tear. i hit that subscribe button so freaking hard

This was really interesting! Nice work man

Very cool. I’ve seen a couple of DIY devices that copy the arm digitizer concept, but never something like this. Thanks for going through all the trouble of getting it to work!

This is so cool! I've always wondered how 3d scanning was done.

When you mentioned it was in “lofting mode” it suddenly made sense why it expected you to plot along the horizontal and vertical planes. Lofting comes from old wooden boatwrights who, when designing the boat, would graph out these lines at a 1:1 scale from their plans. The plans would have a set of coordinates splitting the ship in slices along the keel axis, water line, and profile (x,y,z). They would then use long battens (thin boards)set against these points to determine the curvature of the actual boat lines from this. Once drawn out, they would use this 1:1 scale drawing to base all cuts off of for the remainder of the shipbuilding process. The reason it’s called lofting comes from the fact they’d do this practice in the loft of the shop to avoid taking up unnecessary floor space. I can see why they used a technology hundreds of years old as their bases for doing essentially the same thing, bringing a 2dimensional drawing to life.

this was awesome and it ran from a 3.5floppy install lol, my phone's camera takes a larger mb single picture footprint today. Crazy how much we shoved into those floppy's.

This was a really interesting watch, and jam packed with information! Awesome!

This thing is impressive even today. I would totally use this at work.

There was a company called SAC (Science Accessories Corp.), that made 2D and later 3D digitizers that used time-of-flight triangulation with ultrasonic chirps on two or three axis. I still have a box of the 2D versions. Pretty clever stuff. Built around a 6809 CPU.

Apparently current day Blender can handle a DXF file, can't say I've ever tested this though! Neat little device, seems to work very well. Why do you think they said digitizing would be such a slow process though? it seems like you'd be able to move quite quickly.

excellent content sir! very well done indeed!

Thanks for making this video, it's come up totally at random for me, and it's exactly my kind of content. I would love to have seen inside to know how the data is encoded and what the minimum values it can read are. Thanks again for sharing! :D

super duper cool thank you for sharing. i'm a big Amiga head and the first PC I did 3D modeling on was the A2000 based Video Toaster with Lightwave 3D. Recently I've been having a ball running virtual Amigas and relearning Lightwave 3D. To have an Amiga-compatible 3D digitizer is nuts!

For what its worth, ive had vga recorders bounce 1 pixel like that before, and ive been able to fix it by simply throwing on the warp stabilizer in premiere

As always really enjoyed your video was really interesting as with all that you do. Thanks for sharing and cant wait to see what you put up next. Im sure I am not alone on wanting more content from you, but understand your time and desire to do so is only your preference.

Love it!

wonderfully boffin like and so instructive .......and now you just use your smartphone and a photo sticher .....how the world turns

As a 3d sculptor, mostly making models for 3d printing, I found this to be a straightforward process :) Thanks for the video.

You deserve more views, man.

I love this.😮

Roland made 3d scanners years ago - don't know if they still do. The kind we sold as Roland dealers was basically a mill but instead of cutting, probes moved to measure the item.

thanks!

final words on this? "This. Is. Cool." hehehe enjoyed the video, subscribed. thanks!

wasn't able to find if the source was available or how they did it, but it's definitely using intuition (the gui for amigaos) built with borland c++

Oooh strata vision! I remember seeing this on the Myst documentary back in the day that came with the game. I remember I thought it looked so cool 😎

That's neat.

I bet you could get that DXF file imported into a modern program like Blender. This would make for a really neat tool to make low poly models for retro style games, even if the workflow requiring you to run a 486 is a bit silly.

16:50 my first impression was that it looks like lightwave interface.

I had one of those back in the day.

You have a DXF file, now you have to 3d print it ;)

Instead of using physical machines you could use a virtual machine, or better yet 86box which emulates older hardware on your modern computer.

And now we can do photogrammetry and actual lidar on our phones!

When the developers of the Playstation 1 game Hot Wheels Turbo Racing needed to build 3d models of real hot wheels cars they used this 3d digitizer.

I would set up a 555 timer on the 3.5mm jack and just have it sample as i moved the probe across the surface. Should speed it up and increase the resolution assuming you didn't make a mistake in the trace

"This Is COOL!"

Subbed.😊

very nice video, i enjoyed it a lot, also wouldn't things like photocopiers or scanners for 2d and photo scanners or LIDAR scanners for 3d be technically be types of digitizers also?

NEW CELGEN STUDIOS VIDEO NICE

There are microscopes that use this same principle with a small point being used to map surface. Obviously it’s orders of magnitude smaller and it automatically maps set areas. But it’s the same principle and it can be very accurate.

As a CGI modeler, is very impressive

wow, so this whole magic is just 2 optical rotatory encoders for 2 Axes and a pushbutton. I am sure with Processing and Arduino we can recreate a better version of this. Thanks for a wonderful video !!

Excellent video! Can you probe the serial output to see what data is transmitted, or what format it's using. Maybe we can create replica of this device? I would like to get one for my Amiga.

The skill required reminds me of those news reels of Chinese women making core memories for IBM👌💻👩‍💻

Hm, 3 axis, requires you to calibrate a zero-point, and then the software does some trig? Kinda sounds like something that could be DIY'd from the guts of a ball mouse with a scroll wheel, plus whatever materials for the mechanical components. Interesting. I wonder how much it costed back then...

Hey, the the original packaging i also a part of the collector items, treat it with respect.. 😄 The item itself looks a little flimsy, i bet this appliance should be used very carefully to get good results. And that the footswitch is mandatory for a great result.

Just imagine that as face id scanner))

In Pixar they used something similar too

Must have been intended for rust belt manufacturing companies. 1 thing which doesn't work as well as it did 30 years ago is video capture. Looks like the mac was in interlaced mode.

What a clever and "easy" solution. Today you could build this with an Arduino, but this is from 30 years ago.

I wonder if you can 3d print the scans? Makes me feel like I should make a 3d scanning device.

wouldnt this techincally be the first STL file?

where is it made in?

Yo I feel like I just stepped into a time capsule

/cheer

I miss my Amiga...

I think it is clear that you need an Amiga now.

Is this 4 days ago or 40 years ago?

So Adrian had this thing the whole time and didnt show us ?! 🤨

In hindsight, of course it needs a math copro. In hindsight. Lol

today we can do that, with far better resolution with a phone in minutes😮

You didn't say 'Zed' at first? Aren't you a Canadian? Then again, people from the Okanagan region are...different.

wxy

Go team ZED!! Cringe at the Zee pronunciation... Go Team Canada! :)

You’re being a little rough with that for it being lend to you