All,
We're working on putting together some suggestions for preferred software solutions for each of the steps in the milling process. Below are the categories and a selection of initial solutions. Criteria: must be free/cheap!
2D vector generation:
Inkscape (Free, Win/Mac)
3D model (& 2D vector) generation:
Rhino (PC is cheap, MacOS is still in Beta and free)
Blender (Free, Win/Mac/Linux)
Sketchup Pro (Free demo, Win/Mac)
Toolpathing (converting models to paths for a tool to follow):
Here's one we haven't directly researched yet.
FreeMILL is a pretty good basic toolpath generator for Windows. It's free, fairly limited, but also easy to install & use.
Cambam Free is not open source, but it is free and looks like it may offer more features than Freemill.
Also, Pycam (Free, Win/Mac/Linux) looks promising, so try it and tell us what you think!
Zebra 3D is a work-in-progress (ie, free for now) plugin for Rhino. Looks like there's some good functionality.
Machine Control:
EMC (Free, Linux)
