flowbase VS gcodepreview

There are 3 or 4 Go FBP packages. It seems to be completely capable, but FBP itself doesn't seem to have reached enough critical mass for them to be popular.

https://github.com/flowbase/flowbase is one, and it has links to to some others.

from:

https://github.com/WillAdams/gcodepreview/blob/main/gcodepre...

(just pushed up that file, but not any other file)

The idea is that a user will be able to specify a joint dimension and position, then generate a set of DXF files, which when imported will cut out the design in question once toolpaths are assigned, no need to go through all the manual drawing.

The afore-mentioned joint, Full_Blind_Box_Joint is used in:

https://cutrocket.com/p/63781eaf9822f

and variations of it in other box designs at: https://cutrocket.com/u/WillAdams

Yeah, Barbara Beeton was kind enough to send me a copy of the AMS report for which I am _very_ grateful.

Didn't mean for my post to come across as cavalier --- it's a _very_ tough row to hoe, and even now, I don't think that there are good solutions in this space (but I haven't checked for a while, been out of the typography scene for a while now --- I'd love to be wrong). Ironically, my current project

https://github.com/WillAdams/gcodepreview

is circling back to the underpinnings of this sort of thing (I need to make a single stroke font so as to make it easier to set text in CNC projects) and I'm hoping to approach this from the bottom up and eventually arrive at a visual and interactive version of METAFONT/POST which will also work as a general-purpose drawing program (so that I'll have one to use when I can no longer use Freehand/MX) --- hopefully that will then allow me to finish a compleat digital version of Warren Chappell's typeface designs as we discussed peripherally ages ago.

Pretty much, that's why for DXF export I rolled my own:

https://github.com/WillAdams/gcodepreview/blob/main/dxfexpor...

(shows a DXF w/ arcs)

https://github.com/WillAdams/gcodepreview/blob/main/gcpdxf.p...

(shows a .py file for making DXFs)

See the PDF at the top level for more information.

Yeah, it's a tough row to hoe --- I've been handling it quite differently in my own project, taking "Design for Manufacturing" to the ultimate conclusion and requiring that the part be designed by actually applying tooling:

https://github.com/WillAdams/gcodepreview

Needs a full-on re-write to make the G-code export (and import) work well, but lately I've been focused on exporting to DXFs w/ colour/layer tagging which was just added as an import feature in the CAD tool my side-gig employer does.

What is the new way in which manuals should be written?

I've been trying via Literate Programming:

http://literateprogramming.com/

and applying the concepts of:

https://diataxis.fr/

(originally developed at: https://docs.divio.com/documentation-system/) which divides documentation along two axes:

- Action (Practical) vs. Cognition (Theoretical)

- Acquisition (Studying) vs. Application (Working)

resulting in a matrix of four things

- Tutorials

- How-to Guides

- Explanation (of the code)

- Reference (of the code)

which seems to be working well for my current project: https://github.com/WillAdams/gcodepreview/blob/main/gcodepre...

OpenSCAD is quite polished (for a programmatic mesh modeler).

There is a soft-fork which adds Python:

https://pythonscad.org/

which I've found quite useful: https://github.com/WillAdams/gcodepreview in particular, working up a facility to write out DXFs w/ arcs

Still working on a system for allowing Open(Python)SCAD to model cuts for a CNC using G-code, and just added support for 3D Printing via Full-control G-code:

https://github.com/WillAdams/gcodepreview

Hopefully I can restore the OpenSCAD interface layer and get it working with OpenSCAD Graph Editor:

https://github.com/derkork/openscad-graph-editor

again. Having trouble finding FCG examples which do more than move in straight lines though...

If you want arcs in a DXF (or G-code), I've been working on that in:

https://github.com/WillAdams/gcodepreview