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This is Ruwan from the Inventables software development team. I’m really excited to share with you some new toolpath optimizations we’ve just released for Easel!
Object by object carving - this is an extension of an optimisation we did some time ago (link). After that earlier optimization, Easel carved inner shapes of a larger shape in a “layer by layer” approach, moving from one shape to the next until all inner shapes at a given depth were carved completely. After this optimization, inner shapes also follow object by object approach.
As shown in left side of the following animation, earlier inner 3 circles were done layer by layer. Furthermore, letters are also carved using layer by layer approach. In right hand side, as you would notice carving of a circle followed by its letters are completed before moving to other circles.
Outlines that goes all the way through (i.e. cut-out outlines) are carved only after completing all inner shapes. This also means, outer cut-out outlines are carved only after finishing inner cut-out outlines (see the animation below).
This order of carving is maintained even when these cut-out circular outlines are located inside a larger ‘fill’ square shape (see the project image and animation below)
We’d love to hear what you think about these changes.
Great to hear it worked well for you @Mike. @Rcannon95, First, I exported gcode from Easel. Then I loaded the gcode file in OpenSCAM (now known as CAMotics) [1]. Next I ran the gcode simulation in OpenSCAM. Finally, I used a screen capturing tool called LICEcap[2] to record the simulation in gif format.
[1] http://camotics.org/
[2] Cockos Incorporated | LICEcap
Camotics is my go-to gcode visualizer. It’s great for double-checking code when I’m not sure about something. It’s also great for checking code from other programs like F Engrave.
Very nice!! I have been waiting for this for awhile I love the more efficient tool paths my macaroni bowled over because I was trying to hold a piece from flying out!!
No great changes I will test out and send feedback
Has the release already happened as of 0200 1/26/16?
I’ve noticed that it will still do the “old” way if your artwork is a compound path rather than just nested shapes.
For example, when I drew a shape in Illustrator, as a force of habit I made the shape compound in order to see it on the artboard. When I imported the .svg into Easel, everything looked ok. I went to carve the shape and noticed that it was going layer by layer again.
Dismayed, I decided to try changing the order, or perhaps making the inner shapes pockets instead of profiles. I discovered that I couldn’t select the inner shapes because the compound path was just 1 object.
So back to Illustrator, released the compound paths and re-saved. In Easel, I exported the gcode and ran it in Camotics to test it (since the X Carve was running already). Worked like a charm.
For a point of reference, I’ve run a few projects under the new toolpath strategy that I had already run under the old one.
One project, a pocketed tray with sub-pocketed round insets, previously took 2.5 hours to complete one. With the new strategy it took 3.5 hours to cut two. The project I was working on above was 4 parts in a piece of material. Under the “layer by layer” method it took over an hour to cut 1 part. Under the new method it cut all 4 parts in about 45 minutes.
HUGE timesaver. I can’t thank you enough. Keep those optimizations coming!
Edit: Here’s a version of the file I was working on so you can see what I’m talking about. The top 2 parts are compound paths, the bottom two are not.
@Mike, I’m glad that this change had helped you to minimise job time. Thanks for the detailed post about the issue. I will have a look at those files provided.
@Ruwan Thanks for this! Perfect timing for a job I’ve been running. The reduction in runtime for my repetitive patterns (used to have a ton of time spent up/down on the z-axis for each pass) has been immense.
This change was made about 18 hours ago.