Re: CAM Software Advice for Shopmaster CNC

hi,
i saw what you were looking for,i am in same situation,but i think i
found the solution.

my systems are suppoesed to accept a drawing ,in a user interface like
corel draw,or import an array of coordinates (for a polygon or
spline)from a national server,where designer continuously update
designs,images,and other various processed motifs....according to a
proprietary national format for 2d polygons,raster,elevation
raster,full 3d.
after careful cost analysis,here is the best system i found for low
cost x-y-z positioning:

software: visual basic 6 or vb.net (better becasue of
multithreading,which allows a thread to monitor sensor inputs and
programmable missed step routines etc)

breakout board: oceancontrols kt5190 serial port controller
(simulatneous 4 axis from command in serial data)

activex : mscomm control for serial port

upgradeability: usb to serial converter clears all fears of
disappearing serial port or parallel port from Pc motherboards.

advantages of kt5190: software can be made on non-realtime os.
a simple vb program can give same or better performance than a real
time OS.

a polygon in kt5190 command language takes much less array memory
management than sending data packets to parallel port at hard realtime
intervals.

kt5190 has a function to approximate sigmoid acceleration management
or simple trapezoidal.

matlab RT and XPC target can function at 48khz and above 96 KHZ
respectively hard realtime.But it is really aerospace overkill
system,and xpc requires a slave pc.(so expensive it is worth three
times of my family car,let alone slave pc)

i could be wrong on this KT5190 though,as i haven't tried it.

to get the outline of true type fonts,use getglyph outline API.

to perform raster image conversion to xyz,use ,for example microsoft
WIA api,and to scan straight from USB scanner or webcam and perform
OCR followed by engraving,MODI api.you can also be really fancy and
use avitobmp (video fro windows to actually get images from AVI
files...etc etc)

the real cost is from the kt5190 at 65$ aus,exc. shipping.

which is cheaper than converting EMC2 into a direct draw-cut system
,or to make winxp realtime.
+ sticking to win xp,you get to use the full fledge of existing
vb,vc++,c# codes,and other drivers.

can also convert serial to rs-485