Category:CAM

Computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) software can turn a computer model into instructions for a CNC machine.

This includes Visicut for laser cutting, slicing software like Cura for 3D printing and many options for milling (listed below).

Milling Options

We did not find the perfect solution yet, here is an alphabetical list of options (also see FabLab München's list):

• BCAM
• Blender CAM
• CamBam
• Estlcam
  • Windows only, ~40 EUR
• FabMo CAD app
• FlatCAM for PCBs
• FreeCAD (>=0.16) supports basic gcode generation
  • did not work so far
• Fusion 360 (Tutorial)
  • Windows/Mac
• gcmc "programming language" that compiles to G-code
• GrblGru (Windows only, Freeware) simulator only?
• HeeksCAD
• jscut
  • SVG only
  • did not work
• Kiri:Moto
• MakerCAM
  • Flash
• Laserweb4
  • takes SVG as input and generates G-code out of it, and then can steer a CNC mill with it
  • graphics sometimes buggy on Mac OS
• Millcrum
  • similarities to OpenSCAD
  • 2D only
  • vector import not perfect
• OpenCAMLib
  • library only, not GUI. Used by HeeksCAD and Blender CAM
  • supports many algorithms
• PathCAM
• PyCAM
  • works in Ubuntu, but slow
  • worked for Pakue on a Raspberry Pi 2, however the 3D viewer seems to be broken (at least under Debian) because of some missing dependencies
  • the G Code generation is slow – I mean get a beer and have lunch in the meantime slow – even on a multicore CPU