We use cookies to personalize content, interact with our analytics companies, advertising networks and cooperatives, and demographic companies, provide social media features, and to analyze our traffic. Our social media, advertising and analytics partners may combine it with other information that you’ve provided to them or that they’ve collected from your use of their services. Learn more.
Right now you can create about 4 different bits using the two bit types.
If you want a ball nose end mill you create a cylindrical bit that has a corner radius equal to the the radius of the flutes (i.e. half the flute diameter). If you want a flat end mill you use a corner radius of zero.
If you want a v-bit you enter a taper angle and a tip diameter of zero. If you want a tapered cutter with a flat tip you enter a nonzero tip diameter.
The only type of tool that won’t be supported are any that undercut, simply because that would require that the heightmap based algorithms be redone entirely to utilize a voxel-based approach. Which is possible but outside the scope of PixelCNC, and would likely be done as a whole separate program altogether.
Also, yes, I can add in the ability for it to remember all of your tools instead of blanking the list every time. Then you could build up your tool list and just choose from it when creating operations. Is that something you’d be interested in?
EDIT: Or would you rather choose from a separate library to build your list for each project?
One more thing, the UserGuide.html in the PixelCNC folder has a lot of information about all of the parameters for everything. It is full of tips and useful bits of information for using PixelCNC. There’s some diagrams explaining the tool definition parameters in there too. You should be able to define just about any non-undercutting tool using the cylindrical/tapered cutter types.
Hiya Clyde, v1.18a is up now. I’ve added code to specifically look for the ARB-postfixed function names when the current version of OpenGL is pre-2.1. Again, no guarantees this will solve the problem entirely, but it’s likely to work now - provided there isn’t some other problem that will get in the way, like the CPU only having 1 core.
Hi Dean, did you see my reply about using PixelCNC in metric mode? v1.18a is up now which features some optimizations and improved toolpath generation for outline/profile operations and the zero-distance cut contours of a horizontal operation. Let me know if you have any more questions or need any help with PixelCNC.
I have not taken a deep dive into the manual, but there 3 thing I would like to see if it is not already in the program.
When I import the image, regardless if there is a transparent area, it makes the carving the dimension of the file. It would be great if there was a way to disregard areas.
Exporting the file as a 3d file would be very helpful in order to be able to open it in something like V-Carve in order to add it to a larger project.
The one thing I really wish it had was a way to cut out the image. I am making squadron patches and there is no real way for me to make it cut out, that I have found, the outline of the patch once it is done.
Just suggestions, but the program works awesome. And from what I have seen the spiral function is the cleanest. It does an amazing job. And the best function, in my opinion, is the multiple ways to have it carve.
Looking forward to what comes next. This is a permanent part of my toolbox and I recommend it. recommended it to someone today.
Sorry for not getting back to you until now.Good news! the program works on my desk top machine which is the unit that runs my X-Carve. For some reason it still won’t work on my lap top but that’s ok since I don’t use it to run my machine anyway. Thank you for taking the extra effort to make it work right.It’s now on my “next things to purchase” list, if not this month than next month.
Howdy- I’ve just have gotten the time to start working with the software and when I try to load the samples i get a “image exceeds free trial” message at the bottom of the screen. My screen size is 640 x 480 and I’m using windows xp. thank you.
When you run PixelCNC what’s it say on the very top of the window? Does it just say PixelCNC or “PixelCNC (Trial)”? The examples included with the trial should all work just fine for the trial. The samples included with the full version will not work with the trial version of PixelCNC. The latest version right now is v1.18a, so if you don’t already have that version go ahead and grab it real quick: http://deftware.itch.io/pixelcnc/
EDIT: The free trial is limited to ~65,000 pixels on the image input, which means about a 256x256 (or any dimensions which multiply to 65k or less) will work on there.
It was the trial version, I downloaded the version you listed and got the same message. When I shut down the program I got the following message:.Thank you.
There is no installation as of now, you just unzip the PixelCNC zip file into a folder and the PixelCNC.exe file in there is the actual program you run to use it. This is only because PixelCNC is still in alpha stage of development and it wouldn’t be convenient for users to have to do a full installation process for incremental updates (which are-a-plenty during alpha stage). A one-time installation will be used once PixelCNC enters beta, and updates will be automatically downloaded by PixelCNC. In the meantime the focus of the alpha is on adding features and functionality.
That being said, I’m in the middle of working on the next big release for which I’ve devised some changes to have a more robust rendering pipeline for dealing with older hardware. These days most developers wouldn’t even bother supporting hardware more than 10 years old, because it’s such a huge headache of labyrinthian compatibility issues, but in PixelCNC’s case I know from first-hand experience that a lot of the target user audience is running on older hardware that is otherwise perfectly capable given some coaxing.
At any rate, your laptop’s GPU is limited to OpenGL 2.1, which is sufficient for what PixelCNC needs to do (huge vertex buffers), but drivers from the 2.0/2.1 era are very iffy with how they implement the functionality they claim to support, because there had yet to be a solid naming convention for everything, so finding certain functionality in the drivers can vary. As such I have been working on some changes to how PixelCNC interfaces with OpenGL to make it more robust. I’d already started on that work a few versions ago and it has resolved compatibility issues for most users with older hardware but obviously there’s still drivers out there that want things to be a very specific way in order for them to cooperate.
The big update I’ve been working on now adds quite a bit of functionality and so the newer robust OpenGL interface stuff won’t be released until everything else on the agenda is ready. At the rate things are being ticked off the todo list a conservative ETA for the update is about three weeks, so I’d suggest checking back around then. I’ll be sure to visit this thread to give everyone a heads up. Thanks again.
I’m not thinking that machine is going to be very cooperative no matter what. Just the limited screen resolution alone is going to cause you grief, let alone the fact that with an empty project you’re only running at 18 frames-per-second, which is a good hint that once an actual mesh is on the screen you’re likely going to be experiencing something more akin to a slideshow. If you’re actually loading the 256x256 images provided, and it’s responding as though they’re too large, I’m not sure that’s a problem I can solve, or that I should solve, simply because the machine is clearly not up to snuff all-around.
Your screenshot is 800x600, which is a step-up from the 640x480 you mentioned. Even at 800x600 though this is what you’ll be dealing with due to the interface being laid out and setup the way it is:
You can see how crammed it all is, which maybe I can adjust a few a few things to make some more room, but even that aside if you’re running at 18 frames-per-second with an empty view then throwing half a million triangles on the screen is going to be hell on your CPU/GPU and your experience altogether.
I know I can sit and track down every little thing and somehow make it all work (aside from the poor performance, PixelCNC is already extremely optimized on the mesh-rendering side) but that’s at the cost of time/energy adding actual functionality and capability to PixelCNC that makes it more usefu to both existing and potential customers.
At the outset I had originally decided to not support hardware more than a decade old, but I’ve opted to at least meet some older hardware halfway because that was only a few hours’ of work to make that happen. After that it really becomes a diminishing-returns sort of thing. I’m still adding a little more to the renderer pipeline to make it more robustly handle the strange landscape of OpenGL implementations that existed back in the 2.0/2.1 era, and that’s the very last that I’m willing to do on that front, because there’s still a lot of other work to do before PixelCNC is where I aim for it to be.
Thanks for working with me to try and get it going, but this is where I have to call it quits. I am still interested in determining why it’s not able to access the user documents folder for being able to write a configuration file, that is important, and another one of those things where different Windows versions demands that the program do different things, but if an XP machine is capable hardware-wise then I want users to be able to use PixelCNC as designed.
Thanks again for your efforts. I’ve been looking into purchasing another used computer to run windows 7 on since there are so many great design programs that would be invaluable for cnc. I’m must confess that I am not that great when it comes to computer hardware so if you could give me a some guidelines on what I need to look for when purchasing a computer to run your (and other) programs I would greatly appreciate it.Again, thank you for your help.
Hey there, hope this is the right forum for support on PixelCNC. I’ve just purchased (couldn’t find a trial anywhere to download) but unfortunately the software does not open. I first get a message saying “Search for App in App store? You need to install an app for this task”. Whether I click Yes or No (Yes doesn’t take me to an App store or anything) I get the Early-Access Disclaimer. Clicking “Yes” here begins to load the software but an error pops up - “sys_glfunc: function not supported: glActiveTexture”. Clicking OK the software seems to continue to load but then just disappears completely.
This happens whether I try to launch v1.20 or v1.21. Where can I look for assistance trying to get this software to run for me?
Hi KellyD, this is not the PixelCNC forum, this is just a topic/thread about PixelCNC on the Inventables forum. The PixelCNC forum is at the bottom of the same page that PixelCNC can be bought from, which is the same page that the free trial demo version can be downloaded from.
Just below the free demo downloads is the section for the PixelCNC community/forum.
Thanks and wow…prime example of poor web design (and poor web user habits). The page had me at “Hello” and I didn’t bother scrolling through the entire thing - I just wanted to get to work!
.Thank you.
