I have a photography studio, and we often are asked to photograph things very high resolution. Do do this we use mutli-shot photography and stitch the images together in Photoshop or a specialized program we use for pano stitching called PTGUI. Currently we setup the camera, make sure it's parallel to the painting using a laser and mirror system, then we manually move the painting from vertically and horizontally, taking pictures each time we move the painting. It's not as bad as it sounds most of the time, but we're getting more and more requests for things that will become billboards, huge continuous wallpaper, massive outdoor banners etc, and we need to think of a rail system to move these paintings around. We may want to take a 48"x48" and scan it in 6" increments, and then stitch all the shots together. As such, this is getting tedious and I need to think of a rail system. Ideally it will be motorized so that it can be moved remotely as we sit at the computer/camera. Note that we want to move the painting, not the camera. The camera and light remain fixed. I'm not really sure how to start, but when I look online at what I need, it looks like a large CNC machine, only infinitely simpler. The rails will never need to support any more than 20 lbs, usually much less. Any ideas on how to start doing this would be much appreciated. I'm not quite sure how to start designing it. Notes: Some thoughts and ideas that have been talked about in the last 24 hours. 1) The horizontal measurement is actually 10', so we can have a 9' horizontal track. In order to accomplish this, we may be able to mount v-rails on a 2x4 for a continuous track, and this would allow for more weight. 2) for the vertical, we may be able to use a cable winch, which would allow for more wight and be more cost effective. So the horizontal bar would be mounted on a vertical v-rail that is attached to the wall for stability, but pulled up and down by a cable driven winch.
I would look at a standard LEAD1515 kit part list but remove the Z axis components, contact the store for help with this. Now you have an XY platform that normally sits on a table, but I would mount it on a wall, much easier to point a camera at it that way. You will have to invent away to mount the painting to the X axis carriage. Generating Gcode to move the painting 6" inches in any direction is easy, I would just use macros since you need to operate the camera in between moves (can be automated too but lets keep this simple for version 1) move right 6" G20 G91 G17 G0 X6 move left 6" G20 G91 G17 G0 X-6 move up G20 G91 G17 G0 Y6 move down G20 G91 G17 G0 Y-6 just put each segment of code into a macro button in OpenBuildsCONTROL and then you have 4 easy movement buttons.
