3D lumber edging, trimming, and visualization system (Version 3.0) User Guide Dr. Jingxin Wang, Associate Professor Benktesh Sharma, Graduate Research Assistant Wenshu Lin, Graduate Research Assistant Wood Science and Technology Program Division of Forestry and Natural Resources West Virginia University June 2010
Table of contents Table of contents...1 Introduction...2 Minimum System Requirements...2 Running the Application...3 Controls...9 Example and illustration...17 Overview...17 An illustration...22 Future development...27 Acknowledgements...27 Reference:...27 1
Introduction This is a user guide to 3DLumber version 3.0 program that you intend to use. This document assumes that the 3DLumber program is already installed into your machine. For download and installation instruction please visit the website and follow the instruction in appropriate section. In this document, minimum system requirements are briefly reviewed and an example of application is demonstrated. Minimum System Requirements The program can run on windows operation personal computers. The program has been tested in Windows XP and Vista operating systems. The computer system with following system specification is recommended for this program. All the software and necessary system files are copied by running the SETUP.EXE files as explaining in next section entitled Running the program. Intel Pentium 2, Pentium M, Pentium D processor or better, or AMD K-8 (Athlon) or better 256 MB internal RAM OpenGL 2.0 and later Windows Vista, Windows XP Professional or Windows XP Home NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 or better graphics card -or- ATI Radeon 9600 or better graphics card 1024 x 768 display resolution with true color 128 MB (minimum) video RAM 2.5 GB free disc space 3 button Mouse (two button mouse works as well but with this will limit users from moving the lumber piece ) Keyboard 2
Running the Application All the files and related document are included in a folder name 3DLumber. This folder can be placed anywhere in a Microsoft s operation system installed computers. It is suggested that users should first run SETUP.EXE (user should have administrative privilege) and follow the wizard on the screen. This procedure copies all the required files to run this program. In some instances, the program can run without this procedure. The program needs a graphic card that supports OPENGL. The program can be run by double clicking lumber.exe file located in the same directory which will open the main window as in Figure 1. There are four main menus can be selected in menu bar. Figure 1: Start up screen of program 3
Clicking Exit submenu under 3D Lumber main menu terminates this program while clicking Run submenu under 3D Lumber main menu will starts the program by opening another dialog as in Figure 2. Figure 2: Board information is displayed in board tab and board 1 is selected All the boards in the database are displayed in this screen with brief summary of that piece of lumber which include BOARDID, MILLID, THICKNESS, NHGRADE (grade as assigned by a NHLA grader to compare, NHSM (surface measure as assigned by 4
NHLA grader), SPECIESID and LENGTH. If new board is available to enter, it can be done by scrolling down and adding the required information. Once a new lumber is added, information on shape and defect must also be updated for that piece of lumber in successive tabs. Board can be selected with left mouse button and shape and/or defect information for that board can be viewed or edited by pressing shape (Figure 3) or defect tab (Figure 4). Figure 3: Shape information for the selected board displayed in Shape tab 5
Figure 4: Defect information for selected board displayed in Defect tab We collected defect data including defect dimension and type, the user can click DEFECT TYPE button to see how many defect types collected (Figure 5). We used unique number to represent different defect type. 6
Figure 5: Defect type information in DEFECT TYPE tab Once board is selected, clicking Next button leads to the final display screen in which the board is displayed (Figure 6). 7
Figure 6: Displaying lumber The lumber is displayed on a small rectangular window in white background. Beside the image of lumber, information on length, width, and thickness are displayed in the text. When cutting frame is activated, the dimension information represents the area of lumber bounded within four cutting frames. Grade, surface measure and value of lumber as assigned by an experienced NHLA grader are displayed in the second line text. This information is provided so that user can compare their edging and trimming exercise with that of NHLA grader. When View Defects is enabled, defects are shown over lumber with different color and a legend key of such defects in the same window. 8
Controls Standard 3 button mouse can be used to change view of lumber. The lumber piece be rotated freely at 360 degrees by click left mouse button, right mouse button can be used to change the view scale, and middle mouse button can be used to move lumber in any direction. If views are not desirable and user wants to get the default view, user can press TOOL menu in menu bar and click ResetView (Figure 7). Figure 7: Resetting view to default Along the left hand side of the window, there are many command buttons, control checkboxes, combo boxes, radio buttons, and list. On the top, there are two control checkboxes. By default both checkboxes appear unchecked. The functions of each of them are described below. View Grid This checkbox is used to display the grid along X, Y and Z axis of the lumber respectively to show length, width and thickness of the lumber in inches. Figure 8: Effect of enabling View Grid option. Lumber is displayed with dimensions. 9
View Defect This checkbox, when enabled display the defect on the lumber. The existing defects are displayed with name of defects with different colors (Figure 9). Figure 9: Displaying defects in lumber Edging and Trimming line interval: There are two control combo boxes which are used to change the interval for edging line and trimming line. By default, the edging lines were varied using 0.5 inch increments. Half-foot increments were used for trimming variation. The user can change the edging or trimming interval by click the arrow. For edging line interval, 0.25, 0.5, and 1 inch are available to be chosen, while 2, 6, and 12 inches are available for trimming interval. 10
Figure 10: Change edging or trimming interval Lumber edging and trimming In this program, there are two sawing methods to edge and trim flitch, one is manual cutting, and the other is optimal cutting. During in manual cutting group, two checkboxes can be selected: View CutFrames This will activate trimming and cutting function in the program by enabling CUT button. At this stage, the board is bounded by four red frames. These frames can be moved by clicking up and down arrow buttons (shown in red oval in Figure 11). The left 2 buttons can be used to move the left edging frames, right 2 buttons can be used to move right edging frames, upper 2 buttons can be used to move upper cutting frames and lower 2 buttons can be used to move lower cutting frames. Once the frames are set up for desired sections, 11
CUT button can be pressed to cut the lumber. The cutting frames simulate the saws to cut the lumber. For sectionid, the cut lumber will receive appropriate identification number as illustrated earlier design document. Figure 11: Cutting tool circled in red Show Summary Enabling this control will display the summary of manual cutting lumber. The default lumber does not have any summary associated and only cut pieces whose grades satisfy NHLA grads are shown in summary table. 12
Figure 12: Displaying the summary information Once the lumber is cut, the system will retain the original piece of lumber. The original piece can be identified by 0 values in both CUTID and SECTIONID. The system will retain the entire cut piece if they satisfy any of the grades in NHLA grading. If the cut piece does not satisfy any of the grades, then that piece is discarded and removed from memory. The piece will not be graded until users successfully edge or trim the board for defects and dimensions. For this, lumber should be selected in the option box provided. Once a lumber a piece is CUT, it will be destroyed and removed unless that piece is original piece of lumber. 13
Figure 13: Result of cutting a lumber Once a cut piece qualifies for a grade, it receives the grade (i.e. FAS, SELECT, 1COM, 2COM, and 3COM) and if wane are present and four cutting frame has dimension larger than 3 X 4, then the system will assign NG grade implying this piece has not been graded yet. Then that piece should be edged or trimmed from any side to avoid wane for a grade, and see whether it is a valid lumber. As a rule of thumb, a lumber which shows NG in summary table is likely to yield some graded piece. A lumber can be edged or trimmed as long as its grade is NG in the summary sheet. Once a grade is assigned for a piece of lumber, the system will not allow for further edging or trimming. During in optimal cutting group, one radio button, one checkbox, and one command button are available to be selected. Exhaustive Search This search method tries all possible combinations of edging and trimming lines within the original size of the board. It is guaranteed to find the maximal solution. Each setting of edging and trimming lines determines the shape of the board. Information regarding board length, width, surface measure, and defects is then passed to the lumber grading components, which provides a lumber grade for that board. The combination of grade and SM determines the board s value based on prevalent market lumber price. The one solution that yields the maximum value is the optimum edging and trimming solution. Show Optimal Summary Enabling this control will display the summary of optimal cutting lumber. The function of this control checkbox is similar to manual 14
cutting method. The default lumber does not have any summary associated and only cut pieces whose grades satisfy NHLA grads are shown in summary table. Optimal Cut This button will perform optimal algorithm, and the system will automatically give the optimal lumber value, surface measure, and lumber grade. When this button is activated, a progress will be shown and means the computer is running the algorithm, and then display the total time for computer searching the optimum solution. Figure 14: Result of optimal cutting a lumber 15
During the optimal edging and trimming simulation, the computer will show the progress for searching the optimum solution, and give the total running time. Figure 15: Displaying computer progress and running time In Total SM box, the total surface measure for a lumber after edging or trimming (either from manual cutting or optimal cutting method) is displayed. It is users responsibility to get rid of intermediate cuts to avoid confusion. The Total Value box displays the $ value (either from manual cutting or optimal cutting method) all the pieces combined from a piece of original lumber. Figure 16: Summary results for cut lumber The total SM and total values should be compared with the NHLA SM and NHLA Value for performance evaluation. By default, negative 100 percent for each value since the user does not cut a board. Figure 17: Compare results between simulation and NHLA grader s estimation 16
Example and illustration Overview The following are the steps to run the program Select BOARD Get Shape Information and Defect Information for selected board Select Interval Get the ideal interval for edging line and trimming line increase Display Board Options - Display cut frames (four Saws) - Display grids (along X, Y and Z direction in inches) - Display Defects - Display Summary (Summary does not exist for unprocessed original board) Cut Board Board can be cut into a maximum of nine sections. For manual cutting method, the user can randomly cut one board at most 30 times. However, an optimum edging line and trimming line will be found during the optimal cutting method. Each successive cut get an identifier CUTID which is 0 for original board and this identifier increases by 1 for successive cuts. The cut pieces of board are assigned SECTIONID depending on the position of saw while cutting was performed. A maximum of 9 sections is possible. 17
All smaller pieces (smaller than 3 x 4 ) are considered CULL and removed from memory. If the cut piece qualifies for either of grades FAS, SELECT, 1COM, 2COM, or 3COM, then applicable grade is assigned to that piece of lumber. Once a grade is assigned, that piece is not allowed for further edging or trimming. Only pieces with grade NG can be edged or trimmed until suitable grade is found or deleted from memory due to CULL grade. This cutting result information is available in summary table which can be enabled by using Display Summary or Display Optimal Summary checkbox. In the left hand side, a list of existing pieces is displayed with corresponding summary in summary table on the bottom right. Desired lumber piece can be displayed by double clicking the lumber in that list. Delete pieces - A piece of lumber can be deleted once cutting is performed except for original lumber. Original lumber can be identified by looking at CUTID and SECTIONID which are 0. To the rest of the cutting process, all cut pieces can be deleted by clicking DELETE ALL CUTS in TOOL menu or selected piece can be deleted by first selecting in the piece in the list and clicking DELETE in TOOL MENU. This action should be followed by a message that tells Board Successfully Deleted. This action deletes the board from the list and from the summary instantly (Figure 18) and is not recoverable. 18
Figure 18: Deleting a selected piece It is advisable that any piece which has been processed and no further trying is necessary should be deleted to avoid memory limitation. The user can also choose the submenu Delete All Cuts, and then all cut lumber will be deleted. Comparison - During manual cutting method, once the undesired pieces which can arise due to error in memory or by some bugs, are removed, while during optimal cutting method, the computer find the optimum solution, the system will look into summary table and estimate the total Surface Measure and Total $ value (figure 16) and display the information in textboxes respectively marked TotalSM and Total Value$ at the left side. The number of pieces cut from the original board can 19
be seen in the list of lumbers or in summary table. Total surface measure and/or total value obtained from certain cuts indicated by cutid can be compared to what NHLA grader has suggested for this piece of lumber which is displayed in the text in the display window (figure 17). Lumber value information The lumber price was obtained based on Hardwood Market Report 2009 for Appalachian Hardwoods. The user can select Grades Price submenu from View menu bar. Five species including Red oak, yellow poplar, white oak, black cheery, and red maple are available to be chosen. The lumber grades including FAS, SELECT, 1COM, 2COM, and 3COM. Figure 19: Display lumber grade price Display manual cutting lumber and optimal cutting lumber If the user wants to see the lumber cut by manual cutting method or optimal cutting method, he can select the submenu Manual Lumber or Optimal Lumber from View menu bar. 20
Figure 20: Display manual cutting lumber Figure 21: Display optimal cutting lumber 21
An illustration Illustration of controls and components of the program is shown in Figure 22 and Figure 23. Figure 22: Illustration of controls and components for manual cutting method 22
Figure 23: Illustration of controls and components for optimal cutting method 23
Figure 24: Illustration board 2 was selected with defect displayed. Figure 24 shows that CUT0: SECTION: 0 is selected. The defect information is also displayed (e.g. sound knot and split). On the top of the image of lumber, dimension of original board are displayed as 8 x 5 x 1.06. The NHLA grader graded this board as 3COM with surface measure 5 and $ value of 1.75 as shown in text in the second line on the top of board image. The four cut frames (or saws) are displayed in red with their positions. 24
When the user chooses manual cutting method to edge and trim this board, the result information can be seen in the list and summary table. Figure 25: Illustration board 2 was edged and trimmed by manual cutting. The intermediate piece with CUT1::SECTION5 is the piece which has 2COM. Under the intermediate piece as identified by CUT1:SECTION8 has grade NG. TotalSM is 3.33 and Total $value is 1.42. Since CUT1::SECTION8 is not a valid lumber, it can be deleted to avoid unnecessary memory consumption, although any board with NG does not affect the estimated SM and $ value. 25
While the user selects optimal cutting method to edge and trim this board, the result information can also be seen in the list and summary table. Figure 26: Illustration board 2 was edged and trimmed by optimal cutting. Only one piece of lumber was cut from the original board. The piece with CUT1::SECTION5 is a valid piece which has 2COM. TotalSM is 4.69 and Total $value is 2.01. 26
Future development The current version of the program has been tested for errors, bugs and difficulties in using. This program needs further testing and evaluation on user s parts for necessary improvements and user friendliness. The board and defect information was collected from filed by manual, this will cost much time. Using scanning equipment obtain these information will be studied in future. For optimal cutting method, the optimum solution can be found by using exhaustive search procedure. The optimum result tells users where to edge and trim board can obtain the best lumber value for a given piece of board. However, the running time costs much during search optimal solution. In future, a more ideal optimization module will be added to the system (Dynamic programming algorithm or network analysis algorithm). Once the ideal optimization module is done, the next challenging steps would be to formulate automated machine system that can be actually used in saw mills. Acknowledgements United Stated Department of Agriculture, Wood Education and Resource Center (WERC) are duly thanked for the financial support for this program. Specially, we would like to thank Steve Milaukas and Ed Cesa respectively director and deputy director of WERC for their continuous support. Similarly, William A. Goff and Jingang Liu are sincerely thanked for their contribution on data collection and initial programming efforts. Reference: Wang, J., Sharma, BD. 2008. 3Dimensional lumber visualization and trimming program technical report. West Virginia University, Moragantown, WV available online at: http://www.wdscapps.caf.wvu.edu/lumberrtk/ 27