CAMBAM - 10Bulls crazy CAD/CAM software project

[10bulls]

Hi there!

I've been having a go at knocking together an application for CAD/CAM generation.

It's still in the very early BETA stages at the moment, but so far it can

. Read/Write DXF files (still lots to do, but seems to cope with most 2D
files that I've thrown at it).
. View Gcode files
. 3D-ish viewing of drawing/gcode files.
. Scriptable via javascript and Visual Basic
. TTF text glyph extraction/engraving
. Bitmap heightmaps
. Very rudimentary gcode generation

It is a .NET windows application which requires at least framework
version 1.1.

The latest version and some pitiful but hopefully improving documentation can
be found at...
http://www.brusselsprout.org/CAMBAM

If you care to have a look at it and pass back any comments I would
be immeasurably grateful. It's still early days, so now would be
a good time for any feature/change requests as the design is
still rather fluid.

Once again, it is very much work in progress so expect it to be rough
around the edges

The main task ahead of me is to concentrate more on the gcode
generation side of it as I'm starting to use now for some
current projects.

I'll probably open-source it eventually, but the code is a bit
too ugly to be seen in public at the moment

Many thanks for your time

Thank you very much for the early beta testers who have had a sneaky
peaky at it.

Regards

Andy

[xairflyer]

Andy

I seem to have problems getting the program to run ??

I know it is something I am not doing, I am using XP SP2

[10bulls]

Originally Posted by xairflyer Andy I seem to have problems getting the program to run ?? I know it is something I am not doing, I am using XP SP2

OK, the first thing I'd check is that you have framework V1.1 installed.
You can go to Control Panel->Add or Remove Programs and look down the
list of installed programs for 'Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1'.
If you can't see that, you can download the latest framework version here:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en

It may also be worthwile looking at: http://update.microsoft.com/ to make sure you have the latest hotfixes etc installed.

Do you get any meaningful error messages?

Sorry it hasn't gone so smooth for you. I should really get around to creating an installer program that checks the target environment etc.

Fingers crossed!

Andy

[fyffe555]

Hmm.. I get 'The remote server returned and error: (407) Proxy Authentication required.'

Hit ok and then the app opens.. Does the app try a phone home to check for new version?

Win2k 5.00.2195 SP5 all latest service. Client in a w2k domain behind IIS.

Once it's open it loks interesting - need to spend some time on it.. Thanks for the effort and making the beta available.

Andrew

[10bulls]

Originally Posted by fyffe555 Hmm.. I get 'The remote server returned and error: (407) Proxy Authentication required.' Hit ok and then the app opens.. Does the app try a phone home to check for new version?

Yes, you can turn the version checker off in Tools->Options menu item; set CheckVersionAtStart to false. Other than a tiny text file containing the latest version information, no other information is transferred.

In the next release I'll make the version checker run in a new thread and just report a message in the log view if it fails.

Thanks a lot for giving it a go! Sorry it's so pretty bleeding edge at the moment. Good to see it works on gool ole Win2k!

Have fun and enjoy!

[spalm]

Can it generate a spirograph?

It loads up just fine for me. Very impressive. Now what to do with it? CAM? I loaded the attached dxf file that I just generated from Alibre as a test. (Seems like this is more for an art generator, but heh) The text did not size and position correctly (See the jpg). I selected the 5 circles and clicked Geometry to Gcode from the Tools menu. If you let everything default and click Write File, you get a nasty error because the output filename was not entered. OK. I entered a filename and tried again. All OK. But the result file when viewed in a Gcode Viewer has nice rapid positions, but the circles are really large. Am I in an mm to inch zone? I’ll study the Gcode some more.

I like it. All I need is another distraction.
Thanks,
Steve

[santiniuk]

Great to see you have 'unleashed' this Andy.

As one of the 'beta' testers, (Sorry not too good at the feedback), but I have seen how fast you have coded this program and your obviously highly tallented at coding.

I really hope to see this thread grow with feedback and feature suggestions. I know this has the foundation for a superb program that could be developed and directed by zone members.

One of the 'feature's that would be useful is some form of wizard that guides through the generation of gcode for PCB isolation. I know your an expert at this now

Great work, thanks for sharing...

[santiniuk]

Forgot to mention, how is my 'one handed' rotation code coming along

[10bulls]

Originally Posted by spalm Can it generate a spirograph?

No, but that is exactly the sort of thing I think the scripting side of it would be good for! If anyone cooks up any cool scripts like this, I'd love to see them!

[10bulls]

Originally Posted by spalm ...The text did not size and position correctly (See the jpg).

Getting text to match DXF is on my TODO list. I've got some documentation here with some other caveats of DXF importing.

However, I see from your DXF file that it included RTF text...I didn't even know DXF could do that!?! I've uploaded a new version with a VERY VERY quick hack to pull out the plain text from the RTF (I've made no attempt yet to interpret the text formatting from the RTF codes yet).

Originally Posted by spalm I selected the 5 circles and clicked Geometry to Gcode from the Tools menu. If you let everything default and click Write File, you get a nasty error because the output filename was not entered. OK. I entered a filename and tried again. All OK. But the result file when viewed in a Gcode Viewer has nice rapid positions, but the circles are really large. Am I in an mm to inch zone? I’ll study the Gcode some more.

Blimey!!! You don't hang about do you? Well done!!

The new version isn't quite so unfriendly about gcode output filename errors.

There was also a bug where G02 and G03 gcodes (arcs) didn't always write the I and J parameters (when they had not changed from previous). This *seems* to fix the problem you mentioned.

Inch/Metric issues wouldn't surprise me. I mostly work in Metric so haven't tested imperial support much. I've got some brief notes about changing units here.
Detecting units from DXF files is a bit hit and miss, but in your case, I think cambam got it right and used a scale of 25.4 (inches).

With your example, you would want to relocate the gcode to nearer the origin presumably. Hopefully in later versions I'll add more support for moving
objects about and setting gcode origins.

Also in this release, I've made the version checking a bit more unobtrusive...especially when it fails .

Thanks a bundle for taking the time to test the program so thoroughly...talk about jumping in feet first!! With feedback like this we should get the thing useable in no time!

[10bulls]

Originally Posted by santiniuk One of the 'feature's that would be useful is some form of wizard that guides through the generation of gcode for PCB isolation. I know your an expert at this now

Good idea! (Have you been peeking at my TODO list??)

Reading Gerber and Excellon files properly is slated for beta 0.6.
PCB isoloation is one task I am very keen to use cambam for, so I'd like to make it as painless as possible to use.

BIG Thanks Santini and MrBean for very early beta testing. If you think this version sucks, you should have seen Beta 0.1 these guys endured!!!!!

[10bulls]

Originally Posted by santiniuk Forgot to mention, how is my 'one handed' rotation code coming along

Jeez...you'll be body popping next!
One handed code is in hand (so to speak)...beta 0.6 latest!!!