Ideal laser specification testing

[mixedgas]

For another perspective, albeit with different detail:

https://laserscanningbook.com/

Go with Kindle...


Steve

[buffo]

The challenge inherent in measuring and specifying scanner performance is clearly due to the inherently nonlinear physics of galvos (inertia, impulse, emf, impedence, inductance, dac resolution, etc.)

Ayup!

It's not that it's impossible... It's just, difficult. And complicated.

it is clear that a single test pattern can, at best only function as a point sample in what we might think of as a high-dimensional space of nonlinear functions of time, orientation, angular velocity, rotational acceleration, etc. Reducing all this with linear extrapolation makes a terrible fit for the true performance profile.

Absolutely. The ILDA test pattern is - at best - a performance snapshot under very specific conditions, and even then it includes a significant error factor (around 3 dB) that is baked right into the test. (The center circle that just touches the sides of the square is actually made up of 12 evenly-spaced points in a dodecagon pattern that are all positioned well outside the square.)

I don't expect this to be interesting to most busy laser show professionals who have better things to do than calculus since their intuition supplies all the answers they need.

I'm sure there are some who do find it interesting (assuming they can follow the math). Aron Bacs and Bill Benner would certainly agree, as I've heard both of them talk at length about scanner performance, diving far deeper into the subject than anyone else in the room. Plus, you already said that you are doing this mainly for your own edification, which means it doesn't really matter what the laser show industry at large thinks about it.

My ultimate goal is an effective geometry to signal stream optimiser, enabled by more comprehensive scanner performance measurement and then compensating for it. I'm attempting to achieve this without specialist equipment or sophisticated diagnostic skills

Oof. Sounds like a graduate-level project (or better) in the works. (And if that's the case, I would *definitely* recommend reaching out to the folks above.)

I'm too inexperienced to know yet whether this is sublime insight or sublime foolishness.

They said the same thing about Robert Goddard. Time (and effort) will tell. Best of luck!

Adam