ANNOUNCE: pycam - 3D CNC Toolpath Generation‏

[lleroy]

Hi folks,

I just released a GPL 3D CNC Toolpath Generation program.

You can see some screenshots of it in action at:
http://sourceforge.net/project/scree...roup_id=237831

You can download it from:
http://sourceforge.net/project/showf...roup_id=237831

The GUI is not very sophisticated yet... and the project website is fairly minimal,
but it should be functional...

Please let me know if you are trying it out and what you think...
I'm especially interested in hearing about someone actually using it
to create physical objects...

The first one to do so can put a picture on the project page :-)

-- lode

[lezdep]

I'm trying your application at the moment. Finishing toolpath looked kind of OK.
I've also got Roughing toolpath from second attempt. I'll have to spend
more time testing it (simulation in EMC2). Major issue I have before I could
run generated toolpaths is 0,0,0 position of the tool at the 0,0,0 coordinates
of the machine. That's deep inside my stock I will have to modify toolpaths
manually for now for testing, but would love to see a way in your app to
specify start location relative to stock for g-code program.

Side question - would you be willing to work together with other toolpath
developers and myself on attempt to integrate algorithms into one CAM
Application ? I can suggest 2 alternatives - new app based on Open
Cascade Application Framework (reviving cam-occ project) or adding
3 axes support to GCAM. Toolpath algorithms would have to be ported
to C/C++ though.

[lezdep]

I've just tried to run roughing and finishing toolpaths in EMC2's simulation again.
Actually biggest issue, which would prevent me from running them on real CNC
machine, is the way rapid movements are coded. Many rapid moves are done
alongside the stock with tool partially inside stock. That will brake the tool for sure.
I'm not certain if it is related to 0,0,0 start location, but it seems to me that rapid
moves are done towards the middle line of stock, instead of out of the stock to
safe distance above it. Could you check your logic there ?

I've only tried couple of combinations suggested for roughing and finishing like
"Cylindrical cutter with the PushCutter Pathgenerator and the Polygon PostProcessor" and
"Spherical cutter with the DropCutter Pathgenerator and the ZigZag PostProcessor".
For other combinations I saw toolpaths generated with rapid moves right through the
stock Looks like these rapid movements require lot more work in current version.

[lleroy]

A few bugs have been fixed since the 0.1 release...
It should now be able to generate toolpaths for EMC2

Feedback is welcome...

[Dan Falck]

Hi lleroy,

Thank you for producing this program. I think it this program can fill a gap in the opensource CAM world. I was able to run pycam-0.1.3 successfully (on Ubuntu 8.04). When attempting to run pycam-0.1.4, I get this error message:

~/CAM/pycam-0.1.4$ python pycam.py
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "pycam.py", line 6, in
from pycam.Gui.SimpleGui import SimpleGui
File "/home/dan/CAM/pycam-0.1.4/pycam.py", line 6, in
from pycam.Gui.SimpleGui import SimpleGui
ImportError: No module named Gui.SimpleGui

[lezdep]

Hmm, I'm running 0.1.4 on same Ubuntu version just fine. Have you installed all
required dependency packages ?

So far my tests with 0.1.4 produced quite decent results. Beside some limitations
of algorithms, tools to not crash into stock anymore and I plan to do real cuts on
my CNC Mill as soon as I have time. I encourage others to try it and provide feedback.
This way Lode could make it better.

[Dan Falck]

The dependencies shouldn't have given a problem on this system (in theory...) since pycam-0.1.3 works. I use pyopengl and togl for a lot of other projects. But,that's not to say that Togl isn't causing problems this time-or that I don't have file permissions set wrong- or my directory paths wrong...
I'll dig a little more.

Thanks,
Dan

[lleroy]

looks like there is a missing file in that release.
you can fix it by copying the file pycam/__init__.py from the 0.1.3 release...

thanks for reporting this!
-- lode

[Dan Falck]

lleroy,

Thanks- that was it.

Dan

[Dan Falck]

lleroy,

Could you introduce a feature to be able to change the direction of the cutter path? I would like to run the cutter from +Y to -Y on some parts.

Thanks,
Dan

[lleroy]

yes, that's easy... it will be part of the next release... meanwhile,
you can get the current code from subversion:
http://pycam.svn.sourceforge.net/vie...ar.gz?view=tar
-- lode

[Dan Falck]

lleroy,

I did a SVN checkout and it works. Thank you- that's it.

Dan