I don't think the tool offset trick will work with my mill, because it has no understanding of the program as a whole, it just executes lines one at a time. If anyone can provide some pointers to those articles, I could try writing a program (in perl) to convert a gcode file for an outline font into a gcode file for a line art font and make the result available. Undoubtedly the algorithms exist and are published. If the problem was to convert an outline tool path similar to the attached picture into line art, that an engraving tool could follow, there are some interesting mathematical problems to solve. It might work with a CAD program, I'm not sure.
Dave Dave for running a v cutter for single point engraving you might get around the dual line font paths in deskengrave by inserting some tool offsets so the cutter runs in the center between the tool paths ,a pain but it should work.In the past i've imported them to cad and drawn the tool paths down the center and wrote the code from there,a bigger pain but you can raise/lower the Z in little line segment increments to get the fine line swells and endings on the serifs etc.Adds significantly to the length of the program but who does'nt like hand writing a couple hundred or so lines of g code.that'll be one milllllion dollars pleaseĭave for running a v cutter for single point engraving you might get around the dual line font paths in deskengrave by inserting some tool offsets so the cutter runs in the center between the tool paths ,a pain but it should work.In the past i've imported them to cad and drawn the tool paths down the center and wrote the code from there,a bigger pain but you can raise/lower the Z in little line segment increments to get the fine line swells and endings on the serifs etc.Adds significantly to the length of the program but who does'nt like hand writing a couple hundred or so lines of g code.that'll be one milllllion dollars please Kevin, I like your thinking. It uses all the Microsoft fonts available on the machine. Gcode generation was fast and font/size of the letters/numbers easy to configure. Kevin, DeskEngrave works slick! Thanks for the suggestion. Mach 3 still may be the short path to get my project done. it is derived from EMC, so it is a machine controller, and what I want is just a very simple CAD/CAM program that only knows about generating gcode, and is either open source or has a great post processor. However, Mach 3 is still a proprietary program (no source code), and it has far too many features that I do not want.
The manual has a chapter related to generating gcode from an imported file, including dxf, bitmap and jpg. One feature it did not have that I would like to find is support for V-shaped cutters, so that I can cut the letter in a single pass, with the serifs and thin lines accomplished by raising the cutter.
Dave along with mach3 you should try DeskEngrave, free down load ,converts fonts to simple g code or a dxf file you can import to a cad/cam program for further tweaking if nessasary,works great, its simple and its free,lots of fonts.When you convert to g code it saves in a notepad file and the code is writen in absolute g90, depending on your machine you might have to make a few code adjustments but its easy,then just type it into your control.For real simple fonts and parts i usually just hand write the code from a cad drawing,caveman like.I also like Freemill for simple free g code, it has alot of post proccesor choices ,KevinKevin, DeskEngrave works slick! Thanks for the suggestion.