[BobWarfield]

Fascinating topic.

I like the parameter-based convention (e.g. #100). Sure would be nice if the CAM program put a nice table at the top of the G-Code to make it easy to assign the tools for a particular machine's configuration.

Optimizing for tool change (how close the tools are to one another) and other factors also seems important.

Lastly, it seems to me that a shop's decisions WRT standardizing on certain things could also make a huge difference.

All this should lead to the software being able to minimize time from a lot of perspectives to answer what is in essence this question:

What's the least number of tools I have to swap in the carousel, and changes to the g-code program, to run any of these jobs as optimally as possible?

Quite a few tradeoffs have to be made there, if you think about it.

Best,

BW