Thoughts on opensource CNC, CAD, CAM software?

[William Adams]

Since I've gotten my Shapeoko (opensource hobby-level CNC machine, http://www.shapeoko.com ), I've been compiling all the software I can at:


shapeoko.com/wiki/index.php/Software


(while there is some commercial stuff inter-mixed, the machine itself is opensource, so I'd like for the list to focus on opensource software)


and would be very interested in:


- software I missed
- any other information I should add (best uses / limitations, &c.)


Please add any suggestions you might have here and I'll get it added.


Thanks!

William

[paul cottingham]

http://brlcad.org/
http://www.linuxcnc.org/
Try searching http://sourceforge.net/ a large repository of open source software. http://freecode.com/ also has a large amount of software, although much of it is *nix based. If you had a dedicated machine for cnc and the like, Linux would be a great, free, virus free platform for a cnc etc setup.

[William Adams]

Those two are already listed, and I've searched those two sites already --- but a lot of the programs aren't compleat / useful.

[paul cottingham]

Go to slashdot.org and run a search there. People ask for help with these sorts of things there all the time, and people will often give very good, objective opinions about software.
open source is like any other software, lots of cruft, lots of gems.

[William Adams]

Thanks! I already mined all the discussions I could find there.

I'd be glad of specific suggestions of specific programs which aren't listed yet, w/ commentary on why they're worth listing.

William

(had to add text to get it past the system filter)

[Mike Heidrick]

Did you cover OpenSCAD?

[William Adams]

Yes:

http://www.shapeoko.com/wiki/index.php/OpenSCAD

also have links for:
http://kaosat-dev.github.com/CoffeeSCad/
and
http://joostn.github.com/OpenJsCad/

as well as a mention of ImplicitCAD:

http://www.implicitcad.org/

which looks like the perfect back-end for OpenSCAD, which seemed perfect until I learned about its internal representation.

William