ANNOUNCE: pycam - 3D CNC Toolpath Generation‏

[Stevetotheo]

This may seem dumb but Ive got pyCAM installed and whenever I try to generate tool paths on even something as small as 100mm^3 it has taken up to 12 hours to generate. Am I doing something wrong or is that typical? Great program otherwise. I created a 250 mm tall cylinder using Salome. Nothing fancy and it still took 10 hours on a 2 ghz dual core HP laptop. Just for reference Im using ubuntu 10.04 32 bit.

Thanks in advance!
Steve

[sumpfralle]

Hi Steve,

This may seem dumb but Ive got pyCAM installed and whenever I try to generate tool paths on even something as small as 100mm^3 it has taken up to 12 hours to generate. Am I doing something wrong or is that typical?

Maybe you are using a very small tool for this operation? Or maybe your "step down" value (determines the number of processing layers) is too small? The "overlap" paramater can also be a source of trouble, if it is close to 100 percent.

Just for a short overview over some numbers:
- the number of processing layers is calculated as follows: height of bounding box divided by "step down"
- number of lines in each processing layer: width of x or y dimension (depending on the configured direction) divided by ((1 - overlap/100) * 2 * tool_radius)

Does this help?
Cheers,
Lars

PS: I hope, that I will manage to add threading-support in the next release of pycam. This would speed up processing on your machine ...

[Stevetotheo]

I havent changed any setting from the default install. Is there a better configuration I should use or is it a per job calculation I need to do? What you said makes sense though. Thank you for the quick response! and thank you for the time you've put in on pyCAM.

BTW heres a link to my work blog of the CNC Im building

http://stevetotheo.weebly.com/cnc-space.html

Ive also included a copy of the stl Im using to play with. Its a simple cylinder. Im new at 3d CAD as well so that was the quickest thing I could produce to test with. It reality Im wanting to be able to build anything from a keychain to a guitar body so Im assuming that, using current settings, it would take a week or more to process anything as big that. lol. Let me know what you think. Thanks.

[Stevetotheo]

Can someone with a known working pyCAM setup create tool paths for the stl above and tell me how long it took to generate? Im not interested in the gcode itself just how long it took to compute.

Switching gears I cant seem to get pycam to work on my windows side. I would prefer to be able to get it running in ubuntu but I wanted to see if it was maybe something to do with my ubuntu install. Heres the error I get in windows..

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "C:\Python25\Scripts\pycamGUI", line 25, in
from pycam.Physics.ode_physics import override_ode_availability
ImportError: No module named Physics.ode_physics

thanks in advance for the input.
Steve

[sumpfralle]

Can someone with a known working pyCAM setup create tool paths for the stl above and tell me how long it took to generate? Im not interested in the gcode itself just how long it took to compute.

I tried to run it with my (slightly older) computer and it took even longer than your calculation. This is weird, since the model contains only a few triangles (228). I am used to calculate bigger models within minutes. I am investigating this issue and will report back soon.

As a quick workaround you can try to enable the ODE collision detection (see preferences). This should run much quicker, but sadly the upstream ODE library has rare issues, that can cause corners of the model to be cutted. Take a look at the wiki for the additional requirements of the ODE library: http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawik...e=Requirements

Switching gears I cant seem to get pycam to work on my windows side. I would prefer to be able to get it running in ubuntu but I wanted to see if it was maybe something to do with my ubuntu install. Heres the error I get in windows..

thanks for this report, Steve!
I did not notice before, that the Windows installer was broken. I just published a bugfix release to solve this issue:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/pycam/files/

Please report back, if you encounter any further issues ...

cheers,
Lars

[sumpfralle]

Hi Steve,

Can someone with a known working pyCAM setup create tool paths for the stl above and tell me how long it took to generate? Im not interested in the gcode itself just how long it took to compute.

I just checked the performance of the current develpment branch of PyCAM. It contains some collision detection code improvements implemented by the other developer (lode). It seems to have improved a lot. Currently I can calculate the toolpath for your model with the current default settings within 630 seconds (30s, 540s, 60s).
The default toolpath generations parameters changed slightly since v0.2.5. Especially the "step down" parameter was one third of the current default and this makes quite a difference. When I calculate your model with the old settings from v0.2.5, it takes around 1900 seconds (110s, 1580s, 210s).

Maybe you want to try the current head of trunk? Given that you already installed all dependencies, you could just do the following:

 svn co https://pycam.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/pycam/trunk pycam

 cd pycam

 ./pycam

If anything breaks: try to use revision 460 - it should be quite usable. Just add "-r 460" after "svn" in the first command above.

Cheers,
Lars

[sumpfralle]

Hi,

I just released a new version of PyCAM.

This major release features support for 2D contour models (in DXF or SVG format)
combined with a new EngraveCutter strategy. Additionally major improvements of
the support grid specification and the commandline interface were added.
Numerous improvements of the GUI and the generated GCode as well as a pile of
minor bug fixes were incorporated.

Have fun with it!

Lars

[sumpfralle]

Hi,

I just released a new version of PyCAM.

This major release features parallel processing (automatically using all CPU
cores of your computer) and even distributed processing (connecting multiple
hosts to a shared pool of worker processes). This speeds up processing of
complex models significantly.
Additionally a standalone executable for Windows is available (no dependencies required).
Climb and conventional milling styles are configurable.
The new toolpath strategy "Contour->Follow" can calculate exact contours of
a model (before: only an approximation).
Automatically distributed support bridges keep your 3D model attached to the
outer material.
The path precision (G61/G64) for the GCode interpreter is configurable.
Various interface improvements and minor bugfixes are included.

Here you see an example for statistics of a distributed process pool:


Download links:

• Windows standalone executable
• Linux archive
• Debian/Ubuntu package

Have fun with the new release!
cheers,
Lars

[Tim Nye]

Hi Lars,

I just tried the v0.4 Windows standalone version. It starts fine and finds four parallel processors, but when I try to generate a toolpath it freezes. The console window gives four copies of the message:

PyCAM: error: no such options: --multiprocessing-fork
Usage: pycam [options] [inputfile]

This is on a Windows 7 Home Edition x64 laptop with Intel i3 330M cpu.

Otherwise, let me say what an amazing project you guys have put together. Keep up the great work!

Tim

[sumpfralle]

Hi Tim,

sorry - I forgot to post the "solution" here:
two weeks ago I released a bugfix version of the Windows standalone executable that fixes this problem with multi-core processors.

Just download v0.4.0.1: PyCAM Files on SourceForge.net

cheers,
Lars

[sumpfralle]

Hi people,

today another major release (v0.5) of PyCAM was published.
It features support for single-line fonts, touch off and tool change handling, multi-layered 2D models, many visualization improvements, better DXF support, additional model transformations and many more new features.

See the release announcement for a full list of improvements.


Some screenshots:






Here are two tutorial videos:
Tutorial #1: generate a 2D toolpath and simulate the result
Tutorial #2: handling multi-layered 2D models
The next one will obviously deal with 3D models

And here is the download link: http://pycam.sourceforge.net/download.html

Have fun with it!

[Jtheletter]

I am resurrecting this thread to bring attention to the fact that PyCam is not able to open SVG files when installed on WinXP SP3.

I have made multiple posts on the SourceForge forum and have received zero responses, hopefully this community can provide some guidance.

I am able to open simple DXF files and generate tool paths without issue however I am unable to open any SVG file, including examples bundled with the installer. Here are the latest steps I have taken to install this. Does anyone have advice on how to proceed? Thank you.

Fresh install, all previous programs uninstalled beforehand.

1) Install python2.5-gtk-opengl

2) Reboot

3) Install pycam-0.5.1.win32

4) Attempt to open provided example AVG file "multilayer_engrave.svg". Result: fails to open, PyCam suggests installing

Inkscape

5) Install Inkscape-0.48.2-1-win32: Inkscape opens successfully after install.

6) Reboot

7) Attempt to open provided example AVG file "multilayer_engrave.svg". Result: Error "SVGImporter failed to execute

'pstoedit'The system cannot find the file specified. Maybe you need to install pstoedit"

8) pstoedit installation notes point out that GraphicsMagick is required so prepare to install that.

8.a) Before this, GraphicsMagick installation notes point out GhostScript is required so installing that first: gs905w32

9) Reboot

10) Install GraphicsMagick with all options checked: GraphicsMagick-1.3.14-Q8-windows-dll

10.a) Error during install: "Unable to execute file: ppm ShellExecute failed; code 2. The system cannot find the path

specified."

10.b) Press OK on error popup, next popup says: "DllRegisterServer in C:\Program

Files\GraphicsMagick-1.3.14-Q8\ImageMagickOject.dll succeeded."

10.c) Press OK on that popup.

10.d) run command line conversion example 'gm convert logo: logo.jpg' RESULT: works as expected, logo displays.

11) Reboot

12) Install pstoeditsetup_win32 (version 3.60.0.0), install all optional components

13) Reboot

14) Launch PyCam, Attempt to open provided example AVG file "multilayer_engrave.svg". Result: ERROR
"15:08 INFO Psyco is not available (performance will probably suffer slightly)
15:08 INFO Enabled 2 parallel local processes
15:08 INFO Font directory: C:\Python25\share\pycam\fonts
15:08 INFO Imported STL model: 839 vertices, 0 edges, 1444 triangles
15:08 INFO Successfully converted SVG file to EPS file
15:08 WARNING SVGImporter: failed to convert EPS file (c:\docume~1\jason~1.sla\locals~1\temp\tmp0fwbdv.eps) to DXF file

(c:\docume~1\jason~1.sla\locals~1\temp\tmpepbs21.dxf): pstoedit: version 3.60 / DLL interface 108 (built: Aug 27 2011 -

release build - MS VC++ 1600 - 32-bit) : Copyright (C) 1993 - 2011 Wolfgang Glunz Problem during opening C:\Program

Files\pstoedit\analyze.dll:Recursion too deep; the stack overflowed. Problem during opening of pstoedit driver plugin:

C:\Program Files\pstoedit\analyze.dll. This is no problem as long the driver in this library is not needed. Possibly you

need to install further libraries and/or extend the LD_LIBRARY_PATH (*nix) or PATH (Windows) environment variables."

14.a) Verified that "C:\Program Files\pstoedit\" is already present in windows PATH

15) Copy all DLL files from GraphicsMagick directory to pstoedit directory

16) Launch PyCam, Attempt to open provided example AVG file "multilayer_engrave.svg". Result: ERROR popup:
"pstoedit.exe Entry Point Not Found
The procedure entry point ?construct@?$allocator@VVPath@Magick@@@std@@QAEXPAVVPath@Magick@@$$QAV34@@Z could not be located

in the dynamic link library CORE_RL_Magick++_.dll."

16.a) After selecting OK on first error popup, a second error popup displays:
"pstoedit - Entry Point Not Found
The procedure entry point GetImageProperty could not be located in the dynamic link library CORE_RL_magick_.dll."

16.b) After selecting OK on second error popup, a third error popup displays:
"pstoedit - Entry Point Not Found
The procedure entry point ConstantString could not be located in the dynamic link library CORE_RL_magick_.dll."

16.c) The error popup in 16.b displays 8 more times. Program now hangs with pstoedit cmd line window open but nothing

displayed.

17) STUCK HERE, UNSURE HOW TO PROCEED