feature request - positioning with a camera

[lucem]

Hi, I also posted this as a comment on this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PpH7bcs7vM),
but since you asked me to, I'll open it up as a feature request on github as well.
(update: yt seems to have not liked my comment and removed it...)

bCNC has a nifty camera alignment plugin (https://github.com/vlachoudis/bCNC/wiki/Probe-Camera-Alignment)
which would suit gSender well if it was implemented. (Here it is in motion https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bs4og_uanjM)

Essentially, it consists of grabbing a frame of the camera (regular webcam), overlaying the crosshair graphic with correct scaling
(explained in the bCNC wiki entry) and knowing the fixed tool to camera offset in XY; that way, you can move using the camera and
align to the stock visually, set your zero, then switch over to the tool and the center of the tool is in the exact place where the camera has been before.

In terms of effort, it's not that hard to implement. I'd do it myself, were it not for the fact that
a) I am no web developer, I write C++
b) I have no experience programming Electron, which is essentially a browser (chromium) and a lot of APIs on top of it
so I think it would take me way too long to come up with an implementation and send you a pull request.
Instead, I will ask you to consider implementing it.

For me personally, the lack of being able to use the camera is what keeps me from using gSender exclusively as an otherwise excellent
gcode sender, as in other ways, it is more than perfect - grblHAL support as a convincing argument for instance :)

Thanks a lot, I hope you find this feature request as useful as I do.

Some other resources to look at here:

A general article going over the concept and uses of attaching a camera on a CNC
https://www.datron.com/resources/blog/a-camera-can-revolutionize-your-workpiece-setup/

An example of the type of camera useful for this, and how it may be attached
https://hackaday.com/2015/03/16/microscope-camera-for-zeroing-cnc-machines/
https://cockrum.net/cnc.html#microscope
(His site is an excellent resource on the topic, as well as many other things)

A 4-part series on developing such a solution
https://medium.com/home-wireless/a-tiny-sealed-raspberry-pi-webcam-594896965de6
https://medium.com/home-wireless/cnc-spindle-cameras-part-ii-7b5ae0b5fbed
https://medium.com/home-wireless/spindleview-cnc-camera-software-a647393fb379
https://medium.com/home-wireless/how-to-use-a-spindle-camera-and-spindleview-c2d28eba6d9b
(The why, how and the means)

A demonstration of a camera system on a German CNC project site plus software for it
https://www.cnc14.de/news/cnc14camera
https://github.com/sussner/CNC14Camera