Hi everyone,
We updated Easel’s toolpath smarts today! Now Easel is better at deciding whether or not to return to the safety height when moving from one path to the next.
For example, here’s a [contrived test project][1] that used to throw Easel for a loop. Easel would start carving out one area of the project but eventually back itself into a “corner” where it had nothing left to carve. Then it would lift the bit to to the safety height, move over to the next area, and lower the bit again. You can see all the red lines in the image on the left below, showing all the movements that would have been made in the air above the material.
On the right, you can see that Easel now keeps the bit at the cutting Z height if it can move to another area without leaving the bounds of the shape that it’s cutting. Each raise-and-re-lower-the-bit cycle only takes a second or two, but over the course of carving an entire project this change can save a few minutes.
Let us know what you think about the change! We’re continually working to improve Easel’s toolpath planning.
Cheers,
The Easel team
[1]: http://app.easel.com/projects/2qP2OeOZ4uf2q0Xx5ofTSw
7 Likes
I have found that your tool path efficiency is better in some cases than “makercam” but I ran about 10 letters today that were about 1 & 1/2" in height & width. This took a while and the machine kept moving from one letter to the other for each depth pass.
I would like to see the tool path complete each letter before moving on.
Note: I am generating the G-code and then moving it to a computer that is not connected to the internet (due to location and it is a Windows XP computer) and running the machine with G-Code sender V 1.07.
Thanks.
Scott
Hi Scott,
Thanks for the feedback. We’re continually working on making Easel more efficient, and we do intend to teach Easel to be able to cut shapes all the way before moving on to the next.
We don’t have a timeline for making this change, because things can get pretty complicated when designs have shapes that overlap—especially if they’re not all cut to the same depth—and we don’t want to cut corners (figuratively speaking) and have anybody’s designs come out wrong. But it is something we’ve been mulling over ways of doing.
Cheers,
Jim
I would really like to see an option to create our own tool path!!! That would be awesome!! Cause I have notice with easel its pretty bad at optimizing the tool paths. I did some simple text and it started with the first letter, whent to the last letter, came over to the second to last letter…you get the picture, but it was pretty bad!
