Software…….Blimey

Have been thoroughly googling just how exactly to create digital masterpieces that can be ‘realised’ with this shiny new tool of mine.

Blimey……

There’s a bit of a general workflow to CNC. It seems to go something like this….

• 1 – Create something in some CAD package
• 2 – export it as some filename or other
• 3 – use another software package to generate another format
• 4 – import that into yet another software package to send to the CNC

It seems that every forum, every person has different answers to different requests. There’s a myriad of hardware drivers out there, different softwares more suitable for different drivers.

Right now, I’ll stick with a generic solution to learn and see how it goes.

I’m thinking

3D stuff -OpenSCAD – http://www.openscad.org/index.html

2D Stuff / 2.5D Stuff – Inkscape –  https://inkscape.org/en/  (i’ve already used this a little with my KNK ZING cardboard cutting machine

OpenSCAM – http://openscam.com/download.html#install – seems to be used a bit for making or simulating toolpaths

Heeks CNC – https://sites.google.com/site/heekscad/ – some sort of code producer for the CNC toolpaths – Costs 10 quid