Cristian Paul Peñaranda Rojas wrote: > Looks nice, where is the CAD file for the case? :-)
Now we get to the tricky bits :) Regarding tools, I currently see two choices: FreeCAD + ? and fped + cameo. FreeCAD would be a "real" 3D CAD system. I'm not sure whether the graphical user interface could handle the task, but it's scriptable in Python, so I assume one could express everything necessary that way. Then I'd have the problem of turning the CAD design into toolpaths. I don't currently have a means to generate toolpaths from FreeCAD or STL, though such tools probably exist in a usable form (maybe in the FDM world). I once generated toolpaths from a "real" 3D CAD. That was for the Ben counterweight mold and I used (scripted) HeeksCAD. That worked well, although the toolpath generation process was unpleasantly GUI-heavy. Alas, HeeksCAD seems to be dead now. The various libraries HeeksCAD used for toolpath generation could be turned into a new tool, but that may be a bit of work. The other approach would be fped + cameo. fped can be used as a parametric 2D CAD. By breaking down the design into layers one can produce 2.5D models, which can then be turned into toolpaths with cameo. When used via the GUI, fped doesn't have good macro capabilities for things like rounded corners or such, but when scripting the design (in fped's own language), one has access to all the power of cpp and can also write comments and such. fped can also do the usual 2D measurements. Since fped doesn't know of the Z axis, it can't do side views, though. I also don't have a processing path from fped to STL, although that should be relatively easy to make by feeding the toolpath polygons into a 3D CAD, extruding the slices along the Z axis, and then applying boolean operations on the resulting collection of 3D slices. I've used the fped + cameo process before for a similar case, so I know that it works in real life: http://downloads.qi-hardware.com/people/werner/ledtoy/tmp/1209-lt-ship.jpg - Werner _______________________________________________ Qi Hardware Discussion List Mail to list (members only): [email protected] Subscribe or Unsubscribe: http://lists.en.qi-hardware.com/mailman/listinfo/discussion
