Gcodepreview Alternatives

gcodepreview reviews and mentions

• Digital Wood Joints
  1 project | news.ycombinator.com | 25 Apr 2024

  I've been working on this sort of thing for a while.

  For a Japanese spin on this see Tsugite:

  http://ma-la.com/Tsugite_UIST20.pdf

  which I worked through at:

  https://community.carbide3d.com/t/a-study-of-joinery/28492

  Traditional joints (box, dovetails, or obscure variations such as Knapp (cove and pin)) require a vertical fixture and 3 setups (at a minimum) --- cut parts to length and machine internal features, mount four board and cut joints in 2 corners, flip boards (with correct orientation) and cut other two corners.

  Rabbet joints are simpler --- so simple that they were covered in a video as "The Simple Box":

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V93xDM3lXsM

  (ob. discl., I work for Carbide 3D)

  There have been a number of programs developed for joinery. A current commercial option is:

  http://www.g-forcecnc.com/jointcam.html

  (but it requires a vertical fixture)

  One commercial option became freely available:

  https://fabrikisto.com/tailmaker-software/

  and ingeniously has an option where a 30 degree V endmill is used, but to cut boards held at a 15 degree angle, affording a 90 degree cut with a great deal of control and flexibility --- this can multiply setups to 9.

  A variation I've been experimenting with is full-blind box joints:

  https://community.carbide3d.com/t/full-blind-box-joints-in-c...

  They're reasonably easily drawn up, though they do have some rather specific tooling requirements (a narrow 90 degree V endmill, a square tool of that or smaller diameter, and to make things easier, a large V endmill)

  One test project was so tight that after putting it together for a dry-fit before gluing I was unable to get it apart:

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

  I've been working on a programming system to make this sort of thing a bit easier:

  https://github.com/WillAdams/gcodepreview

  and have some sketched out joints which I've not been able to make using existing CAM tools which I hope I'll be able to do using this system (if anyone could recommend books on conic sections, I'd be grateful --- that's where I got bogged down last time).

• PicoGK is a compact and robust geometry kernel for Computational Engineering
  10 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 14 Apr 2024

  While I certainly appreciate the virtues of a Domain Specific Language, and that OpenSCAD has been wildly successful because of its limitations, the limitations are downright infuriating at times.

  An interesting potential alternative (which hopefully won't result in a fork) is adding Python:

  https://pythonscad.org/

  which I've had some success with:

  https://github.com/WillAdams/gcodepreview

  ImplicitCAD is interesting --- and the (new?) ability to open files from GitHub is _amazing_ (OpenSCAD recently gained that same facility, _and_ it supports the customizer: https://seasick.github.io/openscad-web-gui/?https://raw.gith... ), but it's a heavy lift given the need to work out how to edit files, preview them, and so forth.

• Flattening Bézier Curves and Arcs
  2 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 10 Apr 2024

  Do you have a need to?

  Do you have a project which might be able to make use of this? What sort of work do you do?

  I am bookmarking this for re-reading later because I hope it will help me to understand how to implement Bézier curves in a tool I've been working on for controlling a CNC machine/creating files for cutting on a CNC:

  https://github.com/WillAdams/gcodepreview

  (but first I have to get arcs working)

• OpenSCAD Survey - What should be improved ?
  4 projects | /r/openscad | 6 Dec 2023
• OpenSCAD Survey - what programming language do you want to be added to app?
  12 projects | /r/openscad | 6 Dec 2023
• FullControl: Unconstrained gcode design for 3D printers
  3 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 23 Nov 2023

  Interesting.

  I've long been frustrated by traditional CAD/CAM, so finally worked up:

  https://github.com/WillAdams/gcodepreview

  which allows me to use:

  http://pythonscad.org/

  and:

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

  to create joinery:

  https://forum.makerforums.info/t/openscad-and-python-looking...

  which would otherwise be tedious to draw up:

  https://community.carbide3d.com/t/creating-drawers/19475/26

• Visual Node Graph with ImGui
  18 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 29 Sep 2023

  The problem here is that a fundamental question has not been answered, and as far as I can tell, has not been addressed by any of these visual environments:

  What does an algorithm look like?

  Herman Hesse alluded to this in his novel _The Glass Bead Game_, but despite decades of discussion and work, no one has made a convincing pysical representation of that system.

  I love the concept, and have made some moderately complex attempts, e.g.,:

  https://www.blockscad3d.com/community/projects/1430644

  https://github.com/WillAdams/gcodepreview

  it always devolves to screen size being out-paced by problem complexity --- one gets something of an inkling of this at:

  https://scriptsofanotherdimension.tumblr.com/

  Alternately, one can just break a project down into modules, but then the top-level view becomes the wall of text representation (albeit w/ nice lines or captured into pretty boxes) which one is ostensibly trying to escape.

  I'd love to see someone succeed in this, and I've been using:

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

  quite a bit, and put a bit of money towards:

  http://nodezator.com/

• Suggest for buying a small CNC
  1 project | /r/CNC | 8 Jul 2023

  or perhaps Solvespace --- certainly FreeCAD, and if you're inclined to do programming, OpenSCAD --- see: https://github.com/WillAdams/gcodepreview for an approach which uses RapCAD

• Buy a used Bobs Evolution 4?
  2 projects | /r/hobbycnc | 2 Apr 2023
• Script release ETA
  1 project | /r/FullControl | 9 Mar 2023
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