The software developer in me always wants a piece of the action. It seems that the real heart of the magic is in the generation of the g-code. Are there any wizards out there that can help me understand how such complicated drawings are converted into such simple X,Y,Z movements? |
Are you talking about converting 2d .dxf's to g-code, or complex 3D models?
I wrote a simple Autocad macro converter to convert lines into G-code. It's a simple process of just getting the lines x,y,z coordinates and basically just reformatting those coordinates into a g-code file. This is how the .dxf converters work. Mine just does it in AutoCAD without having to export a .dxf.
The 3D converters, are a lot more complicated. And they work in a lot of different ways. The simplest ones read .stl files (or 3d .dxf's) and basicallyfigure out the toolpaths based on the models triangular surfaces. Similar to the 2D method I mentioned above, only they read the coordinates of the faces and have the tool travel over those coordinates. The more advanced (and expensive) CAM software can create toolpaths from nurbs surfaces as well. Hope this helps