High-level GCode scripting utility prototype
Posted by
Codesuidae
on 2005-05-16 22:44:11 UTC
Greetings to the TaigTools and CAD_CAD_EDM_DRO lists.
Apologies to those of you on both lists for the cross post, but I've
recently addressed the same idea in both lists, so I'm following up with
this single post to both.
A couple of weeks ago I had an idea for a high level language that could
be used to generate gcode output. Since then I've put together a small
prototype application and some examples to make it more clear exactly
what I mean. The example application uses a variant of the Pascal
language to allow the user to generate gcode statements. In order to
make development of scripts faster it includes a 3D preview window that
displays the tool path generated by the script. The application
requires Windows and OpenGL support.
I've included a few very simple sample scripts to show how one might use
the utility. While the preview window is not well designed (poor user
interface, and horribly broken arcs, etc), it should serve to give a
good idea of my intent and where the application is headed. My purpose
in posting this preview is to get some feedback from others who might
want to use a scripting language to generate gcode rather than a
traditional CAD/CAM solution.
With this release, broken as it is, I am granting anyone a license to
use the application for non-commercial purposes. The license term is
unlimited. The final application probably will be free for
non-commercial use as well, although I'll include a message begging for
donations of money or stuff from users junk boxes. :)
If you try the app, please refer to the included readme, and explore the
example files.
Here is a download link for the prototype:
http://codesuidae.net/gcodescript/gcodescript.zip
Enjoy,
cs
Apologies to those of you on both lists for the cross post, but I've
recently addressed the same idea in both lists, so I'm following up with
this single post to both.
A couple of weeks ago I had an idea for a high level language that could
be used to generate gcode output. Since then I've put together a small
prototype application and some examples to make it more clear exactly
what I mean. The example application uses a variant of the Pascal
language to allow the user to generate gcode statements. In order to
make development of scripts faster it includes a 3D preview window that
displays the tool path generated by the script. The application
requires Windows and OpenGL support.
I've included a few very simple sample scripts to show how one might use
the utility. While the preview window is not well designed (poor user
interface, and horribly broken arcs, etc), it should serve to give a
good idea of my intent and where the application is headed. My purpose
in posting this preview is to get some feedback from others who might
want to use a scripting language to generate gcode rather than a
traditional CAD/CAM solution.
With this release, broken as it is, I am granting anyone a license to
use the application for non-commercial purposes. The license term is
unlimited. The final application probably will be free for
non-commercial use as well, although I'll include a message begging for
donations of money or stuff from users junk boxes. :)
If you try the app, please refer to the included readme, and explore the
example files.
Here is a download link for the prototype:
http://codesuidae.net/gcodescript/gcodescript.zip
Enjoy,
cs