On Sat, 2010-03-20 at 16:55 -0600, Sebastian Kuzminsky wrote: > Karl Schmidt wrote: > > What are people using to generate tool paths? > > > > I dug into this a few years back and put my notes here: > > > > http://wiki.xtronics.com/index.php/CAD_CAM#Linux_friendly_CAD_CAM_packages > > > > I've not found usable Open-source software - so I'm looking for something > > affordable that works. > > > > I have generated tool paths from STL files with pycam. It seems to > work, the GUI is very easy to use, but it runs very slowly. > > https://sourceforge.net/projects/pycam/ > > > I have made some 2d drawings and solid models with HeeksCAD, and > generated tool paths using the HeeksCNC plugin. HeeksCAD is not quite > ready for prime time yet, but it's showing a *lot* of promise and it's > got an active community of users and developers. > > http://code.google.com/p/heekscad/ > http://code.google.com/p/heekscnc/ > > > The gcode output from pycam and heeks both loaded into emc2 axis and > seemed to run just fine. I don't have any CNC machines yet, so I > haven't gone all the way yet. > > In the awesome future there will be a full set of open source > CAD/CAM/CNC software on the EMC2 LiveCD, but we're not quite there yet. >
No one has mentioned apt360. Indeed it is an old package recently converted to C with some success. I think most of the 2D stuff works but there are known problems within the 3D portion. Check the wiki for download information. It really needs an active set of developers to clean it up and make certain all of the calls to gsl are right on. Stuart uses a commercial version of apt360 called NCL. I tried some of the code for lofted surfaces and it failed in apt360 but worked in NCL. Thanks to Stuart for checking that out. There is a visual interface for apt360 called vapt. Again check the wiki. I use Synergy for all my 2.5D stuff and a bit of the 3D. I'm just not good at 3D. There is a BIG gap between what I can visualize and what I can realize. Isn't that always the way it is. ;-) HTH Dave ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Download Intel® Parallel Studio Eval Try the new software tools for yourself. Speed compiling, find bugs proactively, and fine-tune applications for parallel performance. See why Intel Parallel Studio got high marks during beta. http://p.sf.net/sfu/intel-sw-dev _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
