ideas.md

Ideas

Features worth having, none of them decided. Most are inspired by MeerK40t and filtered for what makes sense on an upload device whose native format is a raster. TODO.md holds what is missing from what exists; this file holds what does not exist yet at all.

Editing

• Node editor — drag path points and their Bézier handles, add/remove points, convert corner ↔ smooth. The one tool that turns an importer into an editor.
• Boolean path operations — union, difference, intersection, exclusive or. Needs a clipping library (pyclipper, MIT), because doing it correctly is a research project of its own.
• Offset / inset — grow or shrink an outline by a distance. Same library, and what you want for a cut allowance.
• Hatch fill — fill an area with parallel lines at an angle and spacing instead of a raster. Only worth building once the line/fill command (0x40) is decoded; until then the raster path is the only way to fill anything.
• Group / ungroup — a group as a real object with its own transform, not a selection that forgets itself.
• Guides — draggable guide lines that objects snap to.
• Measure tool — click two points, read the distance. Trivial next to the rest, and constantly useful.

Generating

• Vectorise an image — trace a bitmap into paths (potrace). Turns a logo screenshot into something scalable.
• Living hinge — the slit patterns that make plywood bend. A parameterised generator, popular in laser circles.
• Box / finger joint generator — a box with tabbed sides from three measurements and the material thickness.
• Serial numbers and word lists — objects carrying placeholders ({serial}, {name}) plus a list of values, so one job engraves n different pieces. Together with the QR and barcode generators this is what makes labelling real.
• Wobble / dot patterns — the effect operations MeerK40t applies to a path before it is sent.

Images

• Brightness, contrast, gamma and inversion in the GUI. The driver's adjust_levels already does the work.
• A choice of dithering method (Floyd–Steinberg, ordered, halftone, threshold) per image, with a live preview.
• Halftone / screen angle for photographic motifs — a laser resolves dots better than grey.

Job and device

• Spooler — the queue from docs/architecture.md: several jobs, priorities, a running one that can be paused while the next is prepared. The architecture is designed for it; nothing is built.
• Simulation and time estimate — show the dithered result and how long it will burn before uploading. Worth most on the LP2, where the upload alone takes minutes.
• Material library — power, depth, passes and speed per material and thickness, applied to a layer with one click. The paper measurements in TODO.md would be the first entry.
• Placements / repeat positions — engrave the same motif at n positions on the bed without duplicating objects.
• Registration marks — align a workpiece that was moved or is being engraved a second time.
• Camera — a webcam over the bed showing the workpiece under the design. MeerK40t does the perspective correction from four markers.
• Focus and rotary UI — the driver has the commands (0x02 states), nothing exposes them. Untested hardware moves, so this wants care.
• Device settings dialog generated from data — the declarative settings described in docs/architecture.md.

Files

• .lpb export — the baked format the vendor writes to a USB stick, so a job can be engraved without a host.
• .lp2 import — the vendor's editable project format, once a sample file exists to work against.
• DXF import — the format CAD hands out.
• Recent files, and reopening the last document on start.

View

• Zoom presets (fit, 100 %, to selection), an overview thumbnail.
• Dark canvas / high-contrast mode for a workshop screen.
• Show the machine's origin and travel direction on the bed, the way MeerK40t draws its red and green axes.