[ynneb]

One other thing, its a bit scarey that Winamp opened the swf by default, though it still seemed to work. Maybe its better to save the SWF with its own exe container with player.
I note that both flash and swishmax can generate swf files into a stand alone exe player.
I can imagine that many people will have all sorts of swf players, maybe standardising the player will help with reliability?
Great work.

[ynneb]

I hope you dont mind, but I have made it into an standalone exe just for experimentation. Seems to work ok.

[Jack000]

ynneb: cool! It never occurred to me to wrap the swf in an exe like that. I'll have to see how it's done with the flash ide. I'm looking forward to seeing your videos :rainfro:

Also, I just uploaded the new version. There are tons of bugfixes and new features. I've added drilling, tabs, and a new window that lets you export only selected toolpaths.

Check it out at the original url: PartKAM
(you might have to refresh to clear the old one from your cache)

I've gotten some feedback that there are some issues with the linux version of flash player. I'm still working to resolve that issue!

Oh, and I've looked around and decided to host the code on launchpad. The site seems to be down right now (maintenance?), but I'll upload the source as soon as it comes back up.

[Jack000]

oh, and maybe I should explain how tabs work.

- first you need to have a calculated profile operation
- select the profile op, then CAM -> add tabs to selected
- enter the spacing info and the size of each tab
- then you can drag the tabs around or delete a tab by pressing delete

[ynneb]

I've gotta hand it to you Jack. I've never seen such a program written in flash before. 10/10. I have hassled other programmers to use flash in the past as the GUI as I know how versitile it is, and easy to design great looking GUI's.
Are you familiar with EMC a linux CNC controller software? I would love to see a GUI built for it using flash. You could be the man. Even better would be a flash based gui builder for EMC. This would allow others to easily make thier own screens.
Out of interest, how had was it to nut out PartCam. Do you have a long CNC background to understand the requirements of CAM?
I'll hold off on the video until I become proficient with your PartCAM.
Its a pity that you are having problems with the linux flash as I know a **** load of people who will be interested in this.

[Jack000]

CNC controllers like EMC2 probably can't be done with flash. It would require access to low-level OS resources that flash doesn't have (it's a pain just to output a file-save dialog in flash!). The default gui for emc isn't that bad - an order of magnitude better than mach3 I'd say - but a gui builder would be pretty cool. That would be up to the EMC guys though.

It's entirely possible that you won't see any issues in linux. It seems to depend on the linux distro/flash player version.

I got started in the CAM world about 2 years ago. Built my machine in my bathroom with a hand saw :]

I've been coding partkam as a hobby for about a year in my spare time. I'm actually hoping to get some revenue out of it through a cnc job site, but it's very beta at the moment. Check it out at www.partkart.com if you're interested (can you guess the beta key? :rainfro

[ynneb]

Nah the EMC guys wouldnt care, after all its all open source. Just go for it
I tried a few guesses at your key, but didnt crack it.
I'm glad you chose gold as your theme color as you program is GOLD.

I did notice your site the other day. So you want to cut sh1t for those who dont have machines hey.

[Jack000]

oh cmon it's obvious :]

hint: the key has "cnc" in it

[ynneb]

I'm a safe cracker, woohoo.
I had tried, "Jack000", "PartKam" "Scrotum" but never considered "cnczone"
That was truelly a 128 bit encrypted password, you cunning lad.

[Jack000]

scrotum eh? That was my first idea but I decided to go for class instead :]

there's very little in the way of instructions right now, but everything is functional. See if you can figure out what the site does just from poking around. I'll be adding some instructions soon to make it a bit clearer.

[CaptainVee]

Awsome job man! I'll give it a try later!

[ynneb]

I have been doing quite a few experiments.
I have made some text based svg's using inkscape, the free vector drawing program.
Version 1 of PartKam will import the svg, but renders the picture with some slight peculiarities. Your latest version 4 does not render them at all.
Any ideas?
Since this is a free Cam I am thinking people will also be using Inkscape as their "SVG CAD"
Incidentally why did you pick only SVG, since dxfs are the standard of the day for this kind of work.

[Jack000]

could you upload the svg file? Inkscape sometimes uses peculiar number formats that could be causing problems.

svg is xml-based and easy to parse (it's really easy to read with flash). there is almost no documentation on parsing dxf from byte code, and no libraries for flash to process it. Now that it's open source, maybe someone will write a dxf parser for it :]

[ynneb]

Hey Jack, here is a svg that displays oddly and differently over the two versions of PartKam that you posted.
BTW can you please post the url for where you have uploaded the source code. I am keen to see if I can understand how you have coded the CAM part.

[Jack000]

hm.. this is an interesting issue. Here's what the path command in that file looks like:

m -134.95033,290.58497 0,-478.37546 -124.53182,0 0,-64.00537 299.598286,0 0,64.00537 -125.047461,0 0,478.37546 z

to me that looks like a bunch of move commands (which won't draw anything), but apparently the unnamed operations are all line commands in svg short-hand.

Inkscape likes to use every possible svg short hand... it makes for smaller files, but it's really annoying to parse! (nuts)

[ynneb]

That's a pain coz I think Inkscape is the ideal free choice for "CNC on a shoestring budget"
If we didnt have to use SVG files then there are other free CAD options available.
UNLESS.... we can include text options into PartKam. I guess PartKam is a little like Artcam in terms of light CAD but better CAM. If PartKam offered increased CAD abilities then it would be a great allrounder?
I'm still barracking for you Jack. You're onto the beginings of a winner here.

[ynneb]

I might try and download a few free CAD programs and see if they offer options to export in SVG that is more friendly with PartKam. I'm looking to find a good pair of softwares that can compliment each other.

[Jack000]

alright, I've fixed it. Try it again at the original url.

Let me know if you have any other troubles with inkscape!

[Jack000]

inkscape is probably the best bet in terms of vector manipulation software. I should implement all valid svg use-cases regardless, inkscape can be like a stress test :]

[Jack000]

aaaaand... the code is open source! :rainfro:

here's the link to the launchpad project:
https://launchpad.net/partkam

and the bazaar repo (it's a version control system) :
https://code.launchpad.net/~jak000/partkam/main

or if you just want to browse the files, check here:
~jak000/partkam/main : files for revision 1