Jonathan / JROMar 9

#CNCRouter experts

What #OpenSource design tools (#CAD / #CAM) do you recommend for carving 3D organic designs onto wood?

Examples:
(1) Topographical maps
(2) Piano keys - angled bevels on the black keys
(3) 3D human face

Last year, I was using #FreeCAD, and was disappointed to find out FreeCAD's #CAM tool couldn't handle the angled slopes / black keys on the piano keyboard I designed.

Heard of people using: #Blender + CAM, #DuneCAD, #OpenSCAD and some other tools...

#Makerspace

Show threadAmos1d ago
@jrovu I know this is an old post but do you have your model? The maker space I work with uses FreeCAD and I think sloped 3d surfaces would be no problem on FreeCAD 1.1+.
Show threadJonathan / JRO1d ago
@amoose136 I will review my archives and share the model / code. The product design I got stuck on was modeling 2 x octaves of piano keys. I wanted bevels / slopes on the black piano grooves - coundn't figure out how to do it, and get CAM to work with my CNC Router...
Show threadAmos
@jrovu last December I was able to do this in FreeCAD to make some catenary curve cheese slicers. CNC controller was LinuxCNC based.
Mar 31 at 4:05amWeb
Show threadAmos1d ago
@jrovu
Show threadJonathan / JRO1d ago
@amoose136 Cool! What was the surface like in FreeCAD (mesh..?) and what CAM operation did you use?
Show threadAmos1d ago
@jrovu I actually did the modeling in Fusion because I didn’t want to figure out how to do a hyperbolic cosine (catenary curve) in a piece of software I’m not comfortable with. Then I exported/imported as step model. I’ll have to dig up the file to remember which operation it was.
Show threadAmos23h ago
@jrovu Looks like it was a "3D Surface" operation from the CAM workbench which is currently only available in the FreeCad 1.2 development branch...but files opened in Freecad 1.1 will display it fine. The maker space currently provides a custom build of 1.1 with some 1.2 Cam related commits backported to make this sort of thing possible. https://wiki.knoxmakers.org/FreeCAD
FreeCAD - Knox Makers Wiki

Show threadJonathan / JRO23h ago

@amoose136 Would you define these terms, in a simple way? Perhaps with a familiar example / metaphor.

- Hyperbolic cosine
- Catenary curve
- Step model

Gracias!

#MakerSpace #3DDesign

Show threadAmos23h ago

@jrovu Sure. A normal sine or cosine function relates an angle to an x or y value of the unit circle. A hyperbolic sine or cosine function does the same thing (relating an input angle to an x or y value) but on a hyperbola (conic section) instead of a circle.

A catenary curve is the shape a wire or thin chain of uniform mass takes when hanging under its own weight. As it turns out, this is a differential equation with a solution set described by hyperbolic cosines. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catenary

Catenary - Wikipedia

Show threadAmos23h ago
@jrovu A step model is just the industry standard CAD interchange file format. It's a format you can choose in various CAD packages when exporting that will preserve the geometric precision of boundary representation models (IE not a tessellated mesh) between software packages. It does not preserve feature trees but it's still a lot nicer to work with than a mesh import/export (stl, 3mf, obj, etc.).
Show threadJonathan / JRO23h ago

@amoose136 Thank you for sharing your knowledge - this is helpful and interesting!!

#Mint #Linux #Debian #TechSupport
I'm using the distro-provided #FreeCAD 1.0. What's the best way to install #FreeCAD 1.1 / latest stable release?

Show threadPaul Richards22h ago

@jrovu @amoose136 get the #Flatpak from #Flathub is likely the easiest option.

https://flathub.org/en/apps/org.freecad.FreeCAD

Install FreeCAD on Linux | Flathub

An open source parametric 3D CAD modeler

Show threadJajcuś20h ago
@jrovu @amoose136 FreeCAD provides official Linux build as AppImage – it is a single binary – just download, make executable and run it.