Hello, I made a very first version of this script, it could be called version 0.001.
It is not for real use!!!
This version is ONLY for other people interested in development. Also, I don’t recommend using the exported Mach3 files yet, although I allready did some real tests.
How to install:
you need python 3 and the polygon library installed, so that blender python finds it:
download version for your distribution, install it, then copy the library from your python installation to blenders python libraries(on win it’s e.g. yourblender/2.63/python/lib/)
then you can download and install the addon:
http://plant.ffa.vutbr.cz/~novak/dwnflz/cam/cam.zip
How to use:
all controls are in render tab(the logic behind this is that it is sort of an output from blender).
after generating the path, a Mach3 file is automatically exported to your blender file folder.
Beware- all units are 1 blender unit = 1m. so 1 mm is 0.001 when writing any values e.t.c.
Features:
lots of props are unsupported and are placeholders, they have a # before their name in the UI.
It is really more a basis or foundation for a future application, although it allready can do several milling strategies:
-Parallel, Cross, Cutout(Outline), Block, Spiral, Waterline(currently broken), Outlinefill(strategy I invented)
-It has preset system for Cutters, Machines.
-It can (and will) position your object, when autonest is enabled.
-some optimisation for paths
-Path computation can take a while, be patient. It’s quite slow actually…
-3d paths are done with raytracing, that takes a while… a bitmap approach would be better, but blenders access to pixels is terribly slow, I would have to use an external image library
-2d paths work best with curves(I mean Cutout only), these actually seem to work best now of all .
Future :
-postprocessors - exporters for different machines. Don’t know what the standards are. My machine doesn’t e.g control spindle at all. The simple Mach 3 export works, although gives only 2 G-code commands, G00 and G01. Some universal system would be nice.
-I would like to improve performance a lot. I am especially interested in paths that would save machining time. Everything is very slow with bigger meshes
-more strategies
-maybe replace Polygon library, currently it is used only for offsetting curves(any ideas anybody?) - Some solid algo for Minkowski sum of polygons would be awesome, this is currently one of the bigger time-stealers.
What I am not personally interested in(because i have a 3 axis machine), but would be nice if someone else can do:
4 and more axes machines
lasercutters e.t.c.
3d printers(this is completely different thing, but a frontend for Skeinforge in Blender would be nice)
This is original post starting this thread:
I thought recently about starting a CAM tool fro generating gcodes for cnc machines and similar from blender.
There is currently no good solution for this in the opensource world, regarding 3d milling.
Is there interest in such a tool? are there more developers who would be interested in this?
these tools are allready available:
inkscape has a gcode generation plugin in 2.49, which seems to be good for various 2d operations, not only for milling but also for laser e.t.c.
there is a script for blender 2.49, but to me it didn’t seem developed enough.
HeeksCAM, which isn’t developed actively, seems to have some good algorithms.
these are all in Python, so some code might be reused.
