Just thought I'd give you an update: I have some posts but in creating them I discovered a bug in the post-processor system that involves whitespacing/delimiter placement and have begun re-working a few things so that the post-processing system will be more robust in its formatting of generated G-code. Once I get this all squared away I'll release v1.30a which includes a new pocketing operation and some fixes/changes to the medial-axis carve operation, and lastly a post for UCCNC/Stepcraft which simply ensures that all commands are on their own line - based on that forum thread I mentioned the other day.
Viewing post in Stepcraft post-processor for PixelNC?
I see that 1.30a is out. I shall have a play with the trial. If it is half as good as it seems I shall buy a copy. I assume the Stepcraft post-processor is now part of the bundle. My machine is up and running, only waiting on colletts to be in production, so in the meantime I am getting Fusion 360 up to speed, and hope to be adding PixelNC ditto.
One question. I want a simple way of flipping an image done in Fusion 360, so that a 3D carving aimed at wood can also be made on the reverse side of clear plexiglass to make a 3D lid for a jewellery-box. The top of the lid will be smooth and of course, but the reversed 3D carving underneath will show through. Can your software flip in a click an existing design captured from Fusion 360 as a jpg, png or tiff?
From a quick play with the trial and a quick read-through of the manual it looks as though the answer to my question is probably yes, but I could not get it to work in the trial. My first attempt brought up the menu, but flipping did not work, and after that it no longer showed me the menu on right-click. So perhaps it doesn't work Downunder ;-)
From a quick play with the trial and a quick read-through of the manual it looks as though the answer to my former question may be yes, but I could not get it to work in the trial. My first attempt could not get any flipping to work. And a topographical model I brought in and hurriedly played with in under ten minutes proved very spiky. It would be nice to be able to flatten images in the Z-axis so as to smooth that out. Or, ideally, to be able to import an STL directly rather than take it through other software to convert it to a bit-map first.
Hi Nobilangelo,
Currently, the model flip-axis and swap-axes options pertain to the importation of 3D models as a depthmap images and not the direct loading of images themselves. If you import an image or model that is noisy, or "spiky", you can smooth it out via the 'Project Setup' mode button (the mountain/sun photo icon at the top-left) and then by clicking "Input Size & Origin" on the left side of the window and then simply increment the "Smooth Radius" option that appears on the right side of the window and hit 'Apply'. This applies a gaussian blur to whatever input image you have: whether it be a loaded image file or an imported model.
The model import settings, insofar as the flip-axis and swap-axes options are concerned, the desired options must be set *before* you import the model, as they only apply to the model import process, not PixelCNC projects themselves, that's why those options are in the model import settings menu dialog and not the project setup panels. Once the model has been imported as a depthmap image you can set a smoothing radius and/or downscale factor per whatever smoothness you need to achieve to generate your toolpaths off of.
Within the next month or two I plan to expand PixelCNC's functionality so that users create a 'canvas' out of multiple images/models (if they wish to) which they can individually position, scale, rotate, flip, etc..