Toolpath improvements for open profile cuts

[neilpa]

Hello,

Today I’m pleased to announce that we’ve released an improvement to toolpaths for open profile cuts. That is, lines and curves with different start and end points.

Easel now alternates the start and end points across layers. This allows for a direct plunge or ramp to the deeper pass. Previously, Easel would retract and safe-rapid to the original start point before carving the next pass. This is a big time saver for projects with these types of profile cuts.

As an example, I had designed and carved a wooden floor register in Easel some time ago. The carve time for this project used to be 4 hours but after these changes it’s only 1 hour and 14 minutes! The screenshots below highlight the dramatic difference in toolpaths and carve times for this project, an almost 70% reduction.

Before

After

Here’s another example of a decorative wall panel. This is less extreme since there’s only a few passes per profile cut. However, the carve time is still reduced from 46 minutes to 36 minutes, a 20% improvement.

Before

After

Please let us know what you think or if you run into any issues.

Thanks,
Neil

[EthanKinney]

Very happy to see this update. I was running an open cut yesterday and noticed it didn’t pickup and move back to the beginning, but instead just moved down another layer and started to cut back along the path.

That put a big smile on my face!

Thanks!

[WayneHall]

I have not tried it yet but this looks to be a huge time saver. I will be trying it this week to see how much it improves the time. Thanks

[Yuvsaha]

thanks for the awesome information.