@dan rathbun said:

You could post it on Github or BitBucket

Thanks Dan! Good hints!

Hello everybody!

Last year, I started the project Model2GCode. The idea was to calculate GCode for milling machines directly in Sketchup.

Unfortunately, I have lots of other stuff to do, so I'm not able to find enough time to continue the project.

Is someone there, who would like to continue the project? You can get everything I have (source code, web domain, literatures about collision detections, etc).

It would be great, if this project keeps free for everyone.

Best regards,

Tobi

@joergber said:

Hi Tobi,

thank you for sharing!

Unfortunately I am not able to make it work ...
(I only tried v0.5!)

In milling mode 'Surface' I'm getting an error from the Java cmd prompt:
Error: Wrong surface part argument!

In milling mode 'Pocket' I'm getting an error from the Java cmd prompt:
Error: 1

In milling mode 'Cut out' I'm getting an error from the Java cmd prompt:
Error: Wrong cutout part arguments!

And with mouse over the added parts the shown milling options seem to be screwed up ...
The milling options and the milling mode seem to be incorrect.

I would really like to make this thing work!!!

Moin,
Jörg

Hi Jörg!

So, we discussed a lot via email. I would like to "present" the result of our discussion. The problem was: to cutout something, a 3D model is necessary. Just a single plane is not enough. I hope, I can "fix" it in the next version.

Today, I released version 0.5 of Model2GCode.

An important change: Now, it is possible to calculate the toolpath in a pocket! I have some ideas to decrease the calculation time further, but they have to be implemented and tested at first! Hint: At the moment, islands are not yes supported!

Have fun with this new version!

Again thanks a lot for all your support! With the help of your feedback I could fix a lot of bugs!

Best regards,

Tobi

@ematango said:

Hi,
it looks like a very useful tool, great...!
But I get errors while running "calc. Gcode", I have Java installed, what is missing??

Thanks
Emanuele

Hi Emanuele!

Thanks a lot for your feedback! Which errors exactly you get? One idea: Do you try to use an older project with a newer Model2GCode version? In the new version, it could be, that the arguments for the Java software are different - so, when you try to use an "old" project, there could be wrong arguments saved...

I change the Java code a little bit - in the future, there will be a hint, if Java is not able to handle the arguments.

However, it could be a different bug - so, lets try to solve it!

Best regards,

Tobias

Oh, okay, this is a nice trick...

I think, I will get a lot of problems, when Sketchup crashes...

What do you think about this idea:

I will create for every face, which has a material != nil a new material => name: face.to_s
To show the faces again, I will remove the materials again...

Now, it works alomost perfectly... I'm able to show / hide the right faces. But I have problems to the save the original material (in case of TIGs idea: "omat").
How I can save the material for ever - means, one should be able to reopen Sketchup and show the faces again...

I tried it with "Entity.set_attribute" => but there, I can save just strings... do you have an idea, how I can save the material itself? Or can I save the ID of the material and to show the faces, call the material by its ID again?

Thanks for your help!

Thanks TIG for your ideas! I tried it several times, to get a statistical result... but there is no time difference between group transforming and entities transforming.

However, I think, there is no chance to decrease the calculation time...

Thanks a again! I could not improve the code, but I learned again a lot...

Today, I uploaded version 0.4. The most important point is the significant reduced calculation time.
Both for surface and for cutout calculations, the computation time is reduced.

A new feature: "Finishing" in the cutout mode.

For the rest, there are a lot of smaller improvements.

For more detailed information, please have a look to the homepage (http://model2gcode.eu)

This week, I spent lots of time to develope a "Pocket mode". I get a very good result (

), but the calculation time is definitely too long. So, I had a look to some papers to get a much faster algorithm. I found for example "A pair-wise offset algorithm for 2D point-sequence curve". A very nice paper, but I understand this used algorithm not yet to 100 %

So, I hope, I can present you the pocket mode in the next few days... I keep you up-to-date!

I would like to thank all the people, who sent me a lot of messages to improve the plugin. Please, don't hesitate to contact me!

Best regards,

Tobias

I have to push this topic again to the top...

I would like to present my current code, to import some gCode...

` points = Array.new;

while (...)
points << [(xOld.to_f1000).mm, (yOld.to_f1000).mm, (zOld.to_f*1000).mm]
end

group = entity.entities.add_group
group.entities.add_edges points

new_transform = Geom::Transformation.scaling 0.001
group.transformation = new_transform`

I'm not realy happy with this method. Sometimes, I have to import 80.000 points and more. So, it takes a loooooooong time, to import this... I tried, to scale just the small points, but it takes exacly the same time...

Do you have an idea, how I can accelerate this gCode importing?

Thanks again for all your help!