Our book on FreeCAD has been published

Brad and I have been working on a small book on FreeCAD for Packt Publishing, since February of this year. It has now been published and can be purchased through Packt and Amazon. It was an interesting experience writing the book. I think we initially wrote the whole thing in the span of two weeks and spent the remainder of our time until August editing it. I think we learned a lot about writing and a lot about FreeCAD itself.

Experimental Online APT360 Processor

Edit-I have disabled the server for this, since I needed it for something else. This doesn't work anymore.
I have been playing with websockets and a Linode server. A friend of mine, Brent Muller, set up APT360 on the linode server and I created a python-tornado websocket interface to it.

Paste Apt code in the top text box and press the Post Code button. If there are no errors (be careful to make sure the first line of code begins on column one and that there is a line after 'fini') you should get gcode in the bottom pane. For those of you who know what APT360 is, have fun.

Available Post Processors: a1100m, cent1, cent2, dmb, dmb2, e4axvt, e5axtr, e5axvt, emc, webgl2

PARTNO N/C 360 APT SAMPLE PART PROGRAM machin/emc clprnt print/on SP = POINT/ 0, 0, 0 L1 = LINE/ 4, 0, 0, 4, 8, 0 PT = POINT/ 4.0, 8.0, 0 L2 = LINE/ PT, ATANGL, 45 L3 = LINE/ 8, 12, 0, 12, 12, 0 L4 = LINE/ 14, 5, 0, 14, 10, 0 L5 = LINE/ 0, 2, 0, 10, 2, 0 C1 = CIRCLE/ 12, 10, 0, 2.0 C2 = CIRCLE/ 14, 2, 0, 3.0 INTOL/ 0 OUTTOL/ .005 CUTTER/ .25 SPINDL/ 2000, CLW COOLNT/ ON FEDRAT/ 20.0 FROM/ SP GO/ TO, L1 TLLFT, GOLFT/ L1, PAST, L2 GORGT/ L2, PAST, L3 GORGT/ L3, TANTO, C1 GOFWD/ C1, TANTO, L4 GOFWD/ L4, PAST, C2 GORGT/ C2, PAST, L5 GORGT/ L5, PAST, L1 GOTO/ SP COOLNT/ OFF SPINDL/ OFF FINI

Javascript post processing

This is a test to see how javascript could work for post processing. In the left textarea, add terms like 'g0(0,0,0)' for rapid moves, 'g1(1,0,0)' for feed moves and then press the 'Post' button to get some GCode in the right textarea box. Some of you might wonder why? This is just a test for something bigger.

g0(x,y,z) - rapid

g1(x,y,z) - feed move

g2(x,y,i,j) - clockwise arc - i,js in absolute coordinates

g3(x,y,i,j) - counter clockwise arc

feedrate = 33.0 - feedrate

I tried to make things modal, so that unneeded terms aren't repeated. At some point the post processor needs to reside on a client machine as an html5 local file. I have a lot to learn...

JavaScript Post Processor

Program Data feedrate=44 g0(0,0,0) g1(1,0,0) g3(0,1,0,0) g3(-1,0,0,0) feedrate=22 g1(0,0,0)

GCode output

Javascript blogger test

I just want to try something out with this blogger software. I want to see if I put inline javascript in a post. This post might be deleted later, after the test.

This free script provided by
JavaScript Kit

Cloud CADCAM via twisted python

I have been working a bit with Julian Todd of FreeSteel . We have started working on a way of serving out toolpaths, using his 'Slicer' routine from a server. The server takes triangle vertices in and returns tool location paths, for waterline type machining. Julian is very familiar with twisted python and plans on using it for his own server. At the moment, I am running his library locally.

Here is an image of a part that I designed in FreeCAD and applied this 'Slicer' scheme to:



The python code that I used for this doesn't post process into actual g-code, but it could.

import Mesh
import Part,FreeCAD
from FreeCAD import Base,Vector
import freesteelpy as kernel

s=Gui.Selection.getSelectionEx()
s1 = s[0]
m1 = s1.Object
m1.Mesh.write("/home/danfalck/mesh1.py") #write the triangle list to a file
f1 = m1.Mesh.Facets #returns out a list of facets

fssurf = kernel.FsSurf.New()
for f in f1:
fssurf.PushTriangle(f.Points[0][0],f.Points[0][1],f.Points[0][2], f.Points[1][0],f.Points[1][1],f.Points[1][2], \
f.Points[2][0],f.Points[2][1],f.Points[2][2])

def doit(fssurf, z , rad):
fssurf.Build(1.0)

fshoriztoolsurf = kernel.FsHorizontalToolSurface.New()
fshoriztoolsurf.AddSurf(fssurf)
fshoriztoolsurf.AddCylinder(rad, z, 10.0, 0) #cylinder radius, lower Z, upper Z, how the cylinder is connected to the rest of the tool -tangential etc.
fsimplicitarea = kernel.FsImplicitArea.New(0)
fsimplicitarea.AddHorizToolSurf(fshoriztoolsurf)
fsimplicitarea.SetContourConditions(0.99, -1.0, 0.002, 2, -1.0, 0.9)
fsweave = kernel.FsWeave.New()
fsweave.SetShape(-25, 25, -25, 25,.1) #(-x, -y, x , y of bounding area, last arg is granularity of path)
fsimplicitarea.GenWeaveZProfile(fsweave)
fsweave.GetNContours()

fspath2x = kernel.FsPath2X.New(0)
fspath2x.RecordContour(fsweave, False, 0, 0.0)

fspath2x.GetNpts()

[ (fspath2x.GetD(i,0), fspath2x.GetD(i,1)) for i in range(fspath2x.GetNpts()) ]

[ (fspath2x.GetD(i,0), fspath2x.GetD(i,1), fspath2x.GetD(i,2)) for i in range(fspath2x.GetNpts()) ]

pt0 = (fspath2x.GetD(0,0), fspath2x.GetD(0,1), fspath2x.GetD(0,2))

#FreeCAD.ActiveDocument.addObject("Part::Feature","rapids)\n")
c = Part.Compound([])

for i in range(fspath2x.GetNpts()-1):
line = ( Part.makeLine( (fspath2x.GetD(i,0), fspath2x.GetD(i,1), fspath2x.GetD(i,2) ) , ( fspath2x.GetD(i+1,0), fspath2x.GetD(i+1,1), fspath2x.GetD(i+1,2) ) ) )
c.add(line)

c.Placement=Base.Placement(Base.Vector(0.00,0.00,z),Base.Rotation(0.00,0.00,0.00,1.00))

Part.show(c)

rad = 1.0
startdepth = 2.5
zdepth = -3.0
stepdown = .25
steps = startdepth

while startdepth >= zdepth:
z = startdepth
doit(fssurf,z,rad)
startdepth =startdepth-stepdown


Sorry for the poor formatting of the source code- I need to figure that out soon.

Demo of Profiling

More Progress

I was able to hack together a crude 'Profile Operation' dialog and connect it to heekscnc and libarea functions this weekend. Now I can bring up the dialog, select the edges of a solid, and then backplot the code.
It's definitely a rough hack, but it shows some potential.