I am pleased to announce that version 2.0 of the Indexer Wizards are now available. The Indexer Wizards are designed to allow you to cut cylindrical objects on your rotary axis. These objects range from simple cylinders to complex newel posts with tapers, flutes, spirals and carvings. The wizards consist of a few basic operations (called work operations) that can be combined in unlimited ways without having to write any gcode. Work operations include rounding, spirals, flutes, waves, polygons, tool change, wrap gcode on a cylinder and custom. The custom work operation allows you to include custom gcode.
The Indexer Wizards create one gcode output file that can be directly used by Mach3 to cut the object you have designed. The object is designed by entering the parameters required for each work operation that you want to add to your object. The Indexer Wizards convert these parameters to gcode. At any time you can save your work to a gcode file. You do not have to finish your design in one session. You can save your file and exit the wizards and then, at a later time, reopen the file and finish your design.
The wizards are designed to allow bi-directional operation. This means that at any time you can open a file created by the Indexer Wizards and modify your design in any way that you wish. You can change the order of work operations, add and delete work operations or change the parameters of one or more work operations. This makes it very easy to correct mistakes or change a design into something brand new.
A free operation manual may be downloaded from my website.
http://www.wizardsbyrich.embarqspace.com/
BTW, the Indexer Wizards cost $100 and come with free upgrades and support.
Here is a picture of a carving wrapped around a cylinder. The decorative beading was done with the help of Vectric's Aspire.