Vy-tek Color heads???

[Jack Harper]

Has anyone heard of Vytek color head(s)? What I have pieced together so far is, it is a hardware add-on and firmware update to their lasers. It is used for creating the Atomic Art four pass colorizing process. I was told the hardware portion is a manual lens turret that holds four lenses, one for each of the four colors you laser. Apparently, you just manually rotate to the next lens (like a microscope?) in sequence as you do each color. The purpose is to either change the focus of each lens or changes to a different focal point lens (I am not clear on this part). The firmware add-on is also changing the laser setting in concert with each lens (assumably power). My question is, does anyone have any better/more detailed info on this and any idea of cost? Thanks.

[Dan Hintz]

Jack,

You'll have a PM in a few minutes...

[Rodne Gold]

Search for atomic art on this board ...doesnt seem a viable process

[James Stokes]

Jack, You are well aware of Vyteks support. I would worry about getting any type of support out of them if it is needed. Every time I called about any problems with my laser the stock answer was " That is a new problem We have never had anyone with that problem before"

[Jack Harper]

Jack, You are well aware of Vyteks support. I would worry about getting any type of support out of them if it is needed. Every time I called about any problems with my laser the stock answer was " That is a new problem We have never had anyone with that problem before"

James, I agree completely. Actually, I am not considering this, I just want to know what it is and how it works. To prove your point, I talked to tech support and they could not really explain what it really does, other than what I posted. I did not get a since it was something they did not want to share but rather they really did not know any details. So if I had bought it, I guess I should not count on support there either.

While I had them on the phone, I asked about a print driver for my machine they said would be out 2 years ago with a response of uhhhhh...................... welllllll.................. you seeeee.......................I can look into................... that......................but.................... ohhhhh you really want the answer, NO.

[Martin Boekers]

Jack,
I dont know if this is applicable or not, but I'll toss it out.

I come from a commercial photography and many, many years ago I worked with I believe it was a Carlson Enlarger to make highly specialized prints and color separations.

That enlarger had a turret on it with colored lenses on it each covered a specific color band that only allowed a certain spectrum to pass through.
This was used to make color separations.

Color separations was a complicated process.

to make a long story as short as
i can:rolleyes:

you take a color image or transparency (slide) put it in the enlarger,
size it to the final sized piece, then you make an exposure on to a separation film through one of the lenses. you do this for each color.

now you have a series of films that are used to make a printing plate for the printing press.
each plate will correspond to that color ink on the press Cyan, Yellow, Magenta, Black is put down on a separate layer hence 4 color process.

I believe that this is similar with this laser process, just guessing though,
that they re-coat the tile or substrate with a coating (Cermark?) that would correspond with what a press would use for ink. It seem that in theory this would work.

This would be a complicated process and have a fair amount of variables which is probably why they haven't had it on the market with great success.

In the photo industry (back then) the people that actually made the separations,scans & halftones were some of the highest qualified & paid in the industry, time has changed quite a bit since then.

I would suggest that anyone that wants to explore these things to do some research in earlier photographic process after all what we do with the laser is not that far from the photographic realm.

Hope this helps,

Marty

[Cliff Patrick]

Jack,

As you know, I too have a Vy-tek machine and we do have our color heads. It is a time consuming process but I will post a picture here of what I did in color last week. I don't do a lot of the coloring yet, because it is time consuming. I think I've spoken to you before about this as well as Dan. If you want anymore information, let me know.

[Dan Hintz]

Cliff,

Any info you'd be willing to share to the forum at large (or privately, if you choose) would be appreciated.




Martin,

Since the laser is mono-chromatic, this isn't a 4-color process in the traditional sense. It's still an additive process, as in print media (i.e., CMYK), but the entire photographic exposure process is skipped. I don't know if they are melting different colors of Cermark together to create shades or if this is strictly a color-quartet method (e.g., like monitor pixel triads) where no actual mixing occurs as in traditional ink printing, but maybe Cliff would be able to answer that for us... a quick look under the microscope would determine the method. That said, this is essentially the way it's currently done in the printing industry these days, with a laser creating the plates directly.

[Martin Boekers]

Dan, I may be wrong, I don't believe that the colors mix when layed down on a press. If you do look at an enlarged print from a press you will see a halftone pattern for each color layed down.

Color prints made from a color enlarger are considered to be "continious tone"
You may be able to use a higher resolution screen in "press" printing, but it is still putting down a layer of dots or patterns which you will see when enlarged.

Maybe someone who is using this system can shed some light on the process.

They may have another way to do make this happen.

So for the only thing we still know for sure is that it is a very time consuming process.


Marty

[Dan Hintz]

I wonder what the color gamut is like... are the colors rich and saturated, or are they all muted, as in the tile Cliff posted?

[Jack Harper]

Thanks for the input everyone. It is my understanding that true CMYK is a semi transparent, additive process. So to make additional colors beyond the base four, colors are applied one on top of the other with a semi transparent ink, creating a new color or tint. I too, assume that the Atomic process uses this method. However, if it uses the color-quartet method, then I see a method for substantially speeding up the process. By using commercial ink jet technology to apply the respective Cermark chemical for each color in one pass and then lasering just one time, you would have completed the process. Even if the process was additive, this application method would substantially reduce your time to prep each layer while reducing the amount of Cermark, with almost zero waste. This of course goes a bit beyond the hobbyist but is doable using universal, commercial ink jet heads set for the correct particulate size. These are used all the time in manufacturing for product imaging and packaging.

[Rodne Gold]

You mean printing the 4 "colours " of marking and firing the laser once , aligning it with the "printed dots"?
kinda like "curing" the cerdec or whatever with the laser?

[Cliff Patrick]

Hello all. To better explain the process that is gone through to achieve the colored engraving let me say the following. You do use the CMYK format. The picture to be engraved is "processed" through Photoshop CS3. There are about 50 steps that need to be followed in order to make the process work. After it is processed in Photoshop, you spray the tile with a layer of Cayan "special" paint. After you lase the first color, you do the same with the rest of the "special" paint - Magenta, Yellow, and Black. You clean the tile in between lasing each color. After the black is lased, you wipe it clean and somehow, all the colors appear. Since I am new to the business and industry, I still do not understand some the terminology used on the forums. I will be glad to answer any questions that anyone has though.

[Dan Hintz]

Cliff,

It would be a very useful test if you were to run a test grid (multiple blocks of increasing power) on a piece of marble at a very low dpi (say, 75) with all four lenses. This would give us an idea as to the change in dot size/shape from lens to lens... this is the part I'm most curious about.

If I was there, I would also run other tests. For example, we believe each lens changes the dot size. You mentioned changing the power with each lens swap... while this could be due to each Cermark color requiring a different color, another possibility is the lenses all have slightly varying focal points. When used at a fixed focal distance to the material, this has the effect of changing the dot size, with more power required as you move away from the focal point. If that turns out to be true, the same thing can be accomplished with a single lens and changing the material height between passes. If you feel so inclined, I would run the first test I mentioned above several times, but at slightly different table heights... if the dots from one lens get smaller in one direction of table movement, that answers the question.

[Jack Harper]

You mean printing the 4 "colours " of marking and firing the laser once , aligning it with the "printed dots"?
kinda like "curing" the cerdec or whatever with the laser?

Yes, if I understand your question, that is what I am saying. The print heads would lay down all for color cermarks at one time like printing any picture just at a much lower resolution than normal to match the low res of a laser. The important/difficult part of course would be aligning the laser to the chemical print. This would be easier I believe for an open table laser over a cabinet style, but not impossable.

[Rodne Gold]

I think alignment would be a massive issue , especially if the diff colours of cermark laid down by the inkjet printer need differing powers.
Im sure alignment must be critical even with atomic arts method.
I had an inkjet that could probably have printed the "colourd" as it printed on anything 100mm thick if the particle size was small enough to go thru the heads.
The thing is , one can probably accomplish ANYTHING with a laser , with some serious workarounds , but the question is whether its practical and of any economic benefit
I can tell you how to etch metal with a laser......and so on but there are easier more cost erffective ways of doing the same thing.
When all you have is a hammer - everything looks like a nail.

[Dan Hintz]

Rodney,

I agree with all of that... but sometimes the engineer in me just wants to KNOW how something can be done. If something doesn't look like a nail, I'll keep tilting my head until it does. I've approached a number of problems that way, and while it may not solve the immediate problem, it gets me thinking outside of the box on other issues. Kind of like theoretical research... no one knows what it's good for in the immediate sense, but it increases our basic knowledgebase, and that can be a useful thing, indeed!

[Cliff Patrick]

Next week I will do the test pattern and post if you want. I have taken off the color head and put on the regular lens for the time being. I will post the grid pattern after I do the testing. Each color is run at different speed and power. I have not done it on black marble yet, only on glass and ceramic.

[Dan Hintz]

If you have it, black anodized aluminum is one of the ideal substrates, but black marble would be a good second...

[Dan Hintz]

Cliff,

Any updates on those test burns?