toolpath

Cropping toolpaths to model outline

Submitted by lars on Thu, 01/13/2011 - 21:12
Cropped toolpath

PyCAM currently supports only rectangular processing bounds. This can cause unnecessary machine moves in unused corners of this rectangle. Additionally it makes it harder to use support bridges, since they need to be connected with the remaining material outside of the bounding box. See the screenshot for an example of three objects that are supposed to be cutted out of a solid block.

The new toolpath cropping feature (currently only available in the development repository – to be released with v0.4.1) allows you to crop the toolpath to the required minimum. This can reduce machine time significantly. Read more »

Visualizing the direction of toolpaths, lines and triangle normals

Submitted by lars on Fri, 11/12/2010 - 05:38
Visualize the direction of the toolpath

Until PyCAM v0.4 toolpaths were simply visualized with a line. This made it impossible to distinguish a climb milling style toolpath from a conventional one. The current trunk of the development code contains a small addition that let’s you enable hints for the direction. For the sake of simplicity they are implemented as simple OpenGL cones that are added in the middle of each line. Read more »

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