On 1/30/2016 9:03 AM, Chris Albertson wrote: > What are people here using to create G-code? I am looking for options. > > I'm new to CNC and trying to develop a work flow. I'm making small parts > (most fit in a 3" cube) for robot manipulators. These can be designed > for easy manual machining but now I want to add curves and arcs and later > add refinements that have more organic shapes. Qualities are as much as a > half dozen each. > > I use ViaCAD. It is very much identical to "TurboCAD" to make 3D drawings > and these can be saved in several different file formats. > > I found PyCAM. It will read STL files and make G-code. Are there other > options? Can you really build good G-code from STL? It seems STL has no > notion of arcs and hols and pockets. It is all triangles. Does this > matter? > > I'm doing the design work on a Apple iMac and of course the machine > controller is Linux. Any workflow that uses either of those two OSes is > fine, as I've had long experience with both. > I use Java, where I have a rich set of mathematical tools to write code to write and manipulate arrays of "pseudo code" and routines to generate g-code from the pseudo code. The "pseudo code" has the advantage of being easily manipulated with java methods (functions). This works well for me doing the kind of 2 1/2 D decorative designs i make with a small CNC router.
I used Java because I knew it and it had both the manipulation tools I wanted and string generation tools I needed create G-code from arrays in my notation. Being almost undocumented my code would not be much use to anyone else but the approach might. craig ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Site24x7 APM Insight: Get Deep Visibility into Application Performance APM + Mobile APM + RUM: Monitor 3 App instances at just $35/Month Monitor end-to-end web transactions and take corrective actions now Troubleshoot faster and improve end-user experience. Signup Now! http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=267308311&iu=/4140 _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
